


The Gift of a Curse

by WorryinglyInnocent



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), X-Men (Movies)
Genre: AU, Crossover, Multi, NaNoWriMo, Rumbelle - Freeform, novel-length fanfic, pre-swanfire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-29
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-04 00:29:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 70,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5312942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WorryinglyInnocent/pseuds/WorryinglyInnocent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the not so distant future, a mutant father and son, Rum and Bae Gold, go on the run and are taken in by Xavier’s Institute for Gifted Youngsters, forming a bond with telepath Belle. But with Magneto planning further chaos that threatens to widen the chasm between humans and mutants once more, their future is not as secure as they might have hoped.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a crossover placing the Once Upon A Time characters into an X-Men AU, but keeping the X-Men characters as well, so kind of a mash-up. I hope you all enjoy!
> 
> In the timeline, this is fully AU in terms of OUAT, in terms of X-Men it takes place between the 1st and 2nd movies, with the small canon change that Magneto managed to escape Liberty Island and was not imprisoned.
> 
> I am working in the main from movie canon.

**Chapter One**

**Fourteen Years Ago…**

Time to start counting, Belle thought as she lay on the narrow bed, staring up at the ceiling tiles. There wasn’t exactly anything else to do in her cell. She had counted everything she could possibly count, countless times a day, for the past… She looked over at the scratches on the wall that marked out the number of days that she had spent within these four cold, grey walls. A little over four years of her life had been wasted in this dark box with bars over a window that didn’t open anyway, and in those four years, she had done so much counting. Not just the days. She had counted the five bars on the window, the fourteen ceiling tiles, the twenty-four floor tiles, the three hundred and eighty-two bricks that made up the walls, and the eight thousand seven hundred and sixty-three pills that she had been given to take, that she had hidden under her tongue and flushed down the toilet instead.

Because for all she was here in this cell in the asylum unit under the hospital, Belle knew that she was not in any way, shape, or form insane, no matter what everyone else might think of her. She knew what they thought of her. There was no way for her not to know; their deepest, darkest and most primal thoughts were never private when she was in the general vicinity. She could hear them all as clear as day, so many voices practically screaming through her head all the time. In a way, being in the cell had helped a little. With so few people around it was easier to concentrate, easier to ignore the little voices in her head, or rather, the voices that were in everyone else’s heads that she happened to be able to tune into. It was easier to filter them out as background noise, like a particularly bad case of tinnitus. Still, she’d far rather that she was not trapped in a cage to be able to have that peace and quiet. She was not mad. She was not crazy. She was just… different, and no matter how many times they told her that she was just ill and if she took all her medications like a good girl, then they would make her all better, it would not change that fact.

She was twelve when she had first heard those lies, and she had heard the truth behind them, the unspoken truth, that no matter what she did, no matter how much she obeyed them and took her pills and followed their orders, she was never going to get out of here. Belle could still remember the look on her father’s face when he had first brought her here, those four years ago, abandoning his twelve-year-old daughter to this cold and indomitable fortress.

 _“It’s just for a little while, Bluebell,”_ he’d said. _“Just until you’re well again. The doctors and nurses will take care of you.”_ But in his head, he wasn’t thinking along the same lines. In his head, Moe French had already said goodbye to his little girl; his Belle had died the moment she’d told him that she knew what he was thinking about and had innocently answered a question that he had not asked her aloud. That was the moment when he knew what she was, and he knew that he wanted nothing more to do with her.

 _Oh my God, she’s one of **those**_ …

He hadn’t even been able to bring himself to think the word, but Belle knew exactly what he was referring to.

 _Mutant_.

He blamed himself at first, but then he started blaming Belle’s mother, wondering in the dead of night if it was something that she had done during her pregnancy that had caused Belle’s mutation to occur. This gift or this curse that she now found herself in possession of, whose heritage did it betray? That was when things had come to a head, really. When Belle had heard him thinking about those things, when she had heard him blaming her mother, the mother who had been dead only a few short months and whom Belle adored with every fibre of her being. Her mother would have understood her. Her mother wouldn’t have abandoned her at the time Belle needed her most, a young mutant, scared and barely able to grasp what was happening inside her own head.

She’d always known from the news footage that these things were brought on by periods of stress and high emotions.

Maybe losing her mother had been the thing to tip Belle over the edge, to allow this power of hers to manifest itself.

“I’m not crazy,” she said aloud to the ceiling tiles. At least they wouldn’t answer back or try to correct her assumptions. “You all know I’m not crazy.”

Of course they all knew that she was not crazy. She could hear that they knew. They all knew exactly what she was, and crazy wasn’t it, but they were terrified of her and wanted her locked up nonetheless, because everyone knew that mutants were dangerous and not to be trusted.

“You can’t keep me here forever, you know,” she said to the tiles, her voice light and conversational, but the thoughts behind it anything but. She would find a way out, in time. Mind you, Belle thought darkly, she’d already had four years, how much more time would she need? And what would she do once she got out? She was only sixteen, after all, she wasn’t exactly old enough to be able to fend for herself properly. Maybe it would be best for her just to bide her time for a little bit, just until she had worked out a suitable long term plan. Getting out was one thing. Surviving once she had got out was quite another.

Footsteps were coming towards her cell. She had heard them so many times now that she could tell each of the orderlies, doctors and nurses from their footfalls alone, far before their mental voices came into range. Today’s visitor with her midday pills was Roger; he had a heavy gait and his shoes squeaked a little bit. Sure enough, his thoughts wended their way into her mind, and Belle turned over on her bed away from them. Certainly, the physical action did not do anything for her mental state, but it was something that always helped her keep in control; one of the little methods she had taught herself over the years in this box, learning to control her gift in the only way she knew how. The act of turning away from the source of a disturbance helped to focus her mind. Especially because Roger’s thoughts were somewhat unsavoury at the best of times. She’d heard the way he thought about Helen, the shrewd little woman with the pursed lips who brought her most of her pills, and sometimes his thoughts were incredibly… graphic. It made Belle want to vomit.

Today, however, she could not block him out, because in the midst of the muddle of words in her mind, she had heard him think one very important thought.

She had heard him think her name.

_Belle French…_

She turned back to face the door, concentrating hard on picking out Roger’s voice from the rest of the jumble of other patients and staff.

_Belle French. Sedate ready for transfer uptown for further evaluation._

Transfer uptown. None of the other patients had ever really known what that meant, but Belle knew from the fear and panic that shot through their thoughts whenever those two fateful words were mentioned, that it was not a nice place to go, and no-one had ever returned from a transfer uptown. She had no idea what was there, but whatever it was, it was worse than the asylum, and Belle knew that there were not many things that could be worse than her current situation. At least she was fed and moderately warm here.

In that moment, Belle made a decision. There was no time to be lost. She was getting out of this asylum and she was getting out right now, the consequences and the careful planning be damned. She was not going to go uptown, if it was the last thing she did; she was not going to give in. She was going to fight them on this one, not just sit and pretend to take her pills like a lamb.

The only question was how. Roger was getting closer and closer, and he was a strong, heavily-built man. There was no way that all five-foot nothing of her could overpower him physically; he could practically hold her down with one hand and sedate her with the other. If she was going to get out, then she was going to have to outsmart him. That was an easier option: he was not the sharpest tool in the box. But still, how to do it? There was not a lot at her disposal in her cell. Just her own wits.

Her own wits. Her own thoughts. Her own _mind_.

If she could receive other people’s thoughts in her head, who was to say that she couldn’t project her thoughts into other people’s? Telepathy worked both ways, didn’t it? She’d never tried it before; she’d never had reason to. But now… Now it was a matter of urgency.

Closing her eyes and concentrating, Belle pushed on further and deeper into Roger’s thoughts. They were not particularly a place that she wanted to go to, and the deeper she went into them, the more she cringed, trying to pull herself away from the least pleasant ones. She was here now, in his head, but what to do now that she was here? She was running out of time. He’d be coming to her cell any minute now. She could hear him in her head, measuring up the dose of sedative she’d need to knock her out until they reached uptown, wondering the quickest way to subdue her. Well, with her anticipating his every move, it wasn’t going to be that simple, but that wasn’t getting her any closer to stopping him.

_They’ll sort her out properly uptown, sort her out once and for all…_

_NO!_ In her mind, Belle screamed, as loud and hard as she could. _NO NO NO! NO! I AM NOT GOING UPTOWN! NO!_

Roger’s footsteps stopped only a few feet from her door. _What the hell?_

_NO NO NO!_

It was working. She was breaking through, although it was making her lightheaded to do so. She was projecting out, projecting her thoughts out into Roger’s mind. Would it have any effect though? She doubted that her persisting in her unwillingness to go uptown would have any bearing on whether or not he would take her, but it was all she could think of to do at that moment, to flood his mind with her screams until he could take no more.

_Oh damn, they said she was funny like that, hearing thoughts, getting in heads. Get out of my head, you crazy girl!_

_NO I WILL NOT! AND I AM NOT CRAZY!_

Belle’s head was pounding and dark spots were dancing in front of her eyes. If she kept this up much longer then Roger wouldn’t need to sedate her to take her uptown; she’d be flat out unconscious.

Something warm and wet dribbled over her chin and when she brought a hand up to her face, it came away smeared with red. Her nose was bleeding, streaming in fact, and she knew that she was going to have to pull back.

_LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT LET ME OUT LET ME OUT LET ME OUT!_

“Argh, all right, all right, get out of my head you crazy bitch!”

_NO I WILL NOT!_

She gave one final push outwards, deeper into Roger’s mind, and suddenly, the world looked entirely different, like something out of a horror movie. She blinked and realised with a start that the vision she was staring at was in fact herself, standing in the open doorway of her cell with blood dribbling in parallel lines over her chin and down the front of her scrubs. Her eyes were vacant, staring, and Belle gradually worked out what was happening as the light-headedness began to die back to a dull throbbing behind her eyeballs.

She was in Roger’s mind, completely. She had taken control of him and she was now seeing the world through his eyes. He had opened her cell door just at the moment when she had pushed through that final boundary, and her own body, now that her mind was occupied elsewhere, was just an empty vessel. Panic rose in the back of her throat; now that she was in Roger’s mind, would she be able to get out again or was she trapped here forever? Gradually she began to pull back, the sensation the opposite to the one that had accompanied her entry into his mind. Yes, getting out wouldn’t be a problem, and now that she was here, her presence suppressing Roger’s own thoughts, maybe she could use this to her advantage. Her head was feeling much better; it had been a battle of resistance, pushing against Roger’s conscious thoughts, and that was what had caused her so much pain.

She could use Roger’s body and his knowledge to get her out of here. There was only one small problem. Whilst she was in control of Roger’s body, she was not doing anything with her own. Somehow, she was going to have to get them both out of here.

Experimentally, she made Roger wave his arms around. It wasn’t too difficult, although he did make a good impression of a clunky video game avatar; it was more a case of gentle persuasion than active control, but with every little suggestive impulse she sent, she could feel the wooziness returning. She was going to have to think quickly.

Roger had come to sedate her, so by the time he left her cell, she should by all accounts be asleep. Carefully, she walked Roger, zombie-like, into the room and pushed her body over towards the small bed. She did move of her own accord, but just the barest minimum. It was a strange sensation, she could still feel her body moving around at the same time as she was trying to control Roger’s, and Belle knew that this was probably not something that she was ever going to get used to.

Eventually, she managed to get her body to lie on the bed, and Roger clumsily wrapped her up in her blanket before picking her up. This was the easiest way, she figured. Get Roger to take her supposedly sedated body out of her cell and up out of the hospital, ready for her transfer uptown. The ambulance would be waiting ready; there would be nothing too suspicious in it. All she had to do was wait until they were out of all the locked doors, and she would be able to get away.

_Come on, Roger, don’t let me down now._

He moved out of her cell and Belle kept a lookout on all sides for anyone or anything that might betray the oddness of their situation and find them out, but so far there was nothing; just the guy she called the Chief steadily mopping the corridors like he always did. They were coming up on the nurses’ station now, Belle knew it from when she’d had medical exams and had been taken away to another room in the hospital. So far, so good. She had no idea where she was going after the main door to the asylum unit, though, and she began to paw through Roger’s memories, looking for a way out. The deeper she delved, the more she uncovered that she really would rather not have done, and every time she went looking for a specific thought, she lost the physical control and Roger stopped moving, nearly dropping her inert body on more than one occasion. She just needed to get out of the asylum, and then she’d be free. Despite her trepidation and her head that was rapidly beginning to pound again, Belle felt a small sense of optimism. She could do this. She could get out.

“Roger? Is everything all right?”

Belle’s blood ran cold. It was the Sister, the nurse in charge and Belle’s own personal nemesis. She’d heard the nurse’s thoughts on many an occasion, and they were not pleasant ones. She took a great deal of pride in her work, and some of the things she thought about her patients… Belle caught a snatch of her current train now; inside Roger’s mind her gift was dampened, but still there.

_There she goes, the little one from number eight. Such a shame, we could have done so much with her here. Still, they’ll have fun with her at the labs._

Belle shivered at the thought. Not if she could help it.

“Roger?” the nurse persisted. “Are you all right?” She was looking remarkably concerned, but it was not the burden in his arms that was the cause of her worry, it was Roger himself. Did he really look so different from the norm? Belle began to panic again, and then she saw something drip onto the grey, rough blanket that her body was wrapped in. Warm and red. Glancing across at the mirrored medication cabinet above Sister’s desk, she saw that Roger’s nose was bleeding, just like hers was.

“I’m fine,” she finally managed to say; the words coming out garbled in Roger’s voice and sounding so terribly false that Belle knew that she was done for.

“No you’re not, you’re bleeding. What have you been doing, man? Did she put up that much of a fight? She’s always been so meek and mild, I would have thought she was the last one that you’d have any trouble with.”

Inside Roger’s mind, Belle gave a snort. They wouldn’t be making that mistake again, not once she had escaped. But it was best not to get too cocky. She hadn’t actually got out yet, and there was still plenty that could go wrong. The nurse came closer, holding up a handkerchief, and as she did, one of Roger’s own thoughts wended its way into Belle’s mind, a particularly lascivious one. Belle cringed, disgusted at being inside the man’s head. She was going to need some kind of mental bleach to get over this experience, and the longer she stood here, with the nurse carefully dabbing at Roger’s face, the longer it was taking her to get out, and the more chance she had of being found out.

“There,” Sister said at last. “We don’t want you to be scaring the ambulance men, after all. Off you go, they’ll be waiting for her.”

Roger nodded, and began his slow and clumsy walk up the stairs and out of the asylum. The nurse followed, and Belle could taste fear in the back of her mouth again. She had no idea what she was going to do once the time came to disengage from Roger’s mind and he regained control of his own thoughts and body as it was, but if Sister was there too, well, it didn’t bear thinking about.

Luckily, she did not come out into the main hospital area with them, she simply held the door open for Roger. Belle was so relieved by this that when she said thank you, it came out far more heartfelt than she was intending and the nurse gave Roger a funny look. Belle moved him away quickly, and she heard the door click shut and locked behind them. They were out. They were past the asylum doors. She was very nearly free.

Roger’s memories told her that she needed to go straight on and hang a right in order to get to the hospital entrance where the ambulance would be waiting to take its sedated patient away to the horrors that she might be subjected to at the labs, and if she went to the left, there was a small closet that the cleaners used.

Belle had a brainwave. Or possibly Roger had a brainwave, it was getting to the stage where Belle couldn’t tell. She was going to have to stop soon, the drowsy, light-headed feeling had become a definite and distinct pain behind her eyes. Now, all she had to do was get this to work. The timing had to be perfect.

Belle walked Roger into the cleaning closet, trying to be gentle as he laid her body down on the floor, but she could still feel the knocks from his indelicacy (or rather, her own inexperience at controlling another body) in the back of her mind as she straightened and began to pull back out of his mind. The throbbing pain lessened, and there was a brief moment when she was hovering on the cusp between the two vessels, seeing through both her and Roger’s eyes at the same time. It was now or never.

With the last of her mental strength, Belle made Roger hit his head very hard against the shelving unit. The resounding crack of pain whipped through her, shocking her back into her own body. She shot upright from her slumped position as quickly as she was able, her mind thrumming and tensing for a struggle, but there was nothing. Roger was dazed, his thoughts jumbled.

She’d hoped she’d knocked him out, but it was not to be. He was still conscious, and that meant that soon enough, he would come to and realise what was happening. There was only one thing for it. Belle was going to have to run.

She scrabbled to her feet as Roger started to come back to himself, and by the time he’d visibly twigged what had just happened in the last ten minutes and where he was, Belle was out of the closet, slamming the door in his face and sprinting as fast as her malnourished body could take her. Without Roger’s memories, she was lost in the labyrinth of the hospital, but she remembered that the exit was to her right, and there were doors there, so she headed for those. She could hear people running after her; someone had obviously realised that a young woman in scrubs emerging from a broom closet and going hell for leather probably wasn’t meant to be doing so, but she was so nearly there, so nearly free, that all she could do was just put on a burst of speed and get there, by hook or by crook. Fresh air, the likes of which she had not smelled or felt for four years, was within her grasp, she could almost taste it.

Belle burst through the doors, past the shocked ambulance crew, and kept on running, through the rain that was pouring down. She ran and ran and ran until she couldn’t bear to move any more, her nose still streaming blood and her head pounding piteously. She caught snatches of thoughts, drifting to her from the distance from her pursuers.

_Leave her, she’ll never survive out here. We’ll come back and get her body in the morning._

Belle threw herself down behind a tree trunk, shivering uncontrollably in the freezing downpour.

She was out. She was free. She had escaped, and she was never, ever going back.

But where on earth did she go from here? The world was very big, and now that she was out in it, Belle felt very small.

A single thought permeated through her brain, one that was entirely of her own thinking.

_Help!_


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

It was taken as a fact that Bae Gold would not have managed to survive his fourteen years on this earth if he had not known how to fight, but equally, he would also not have managed to survive had he not known how to tell the difference between a situation that required a fight and a situation that required a flight.

Today was one of the latter occasions.

Bae was not a large boy by any manner or means. In fact, he was remarkably average and ordinary in all aspects of his being. He was bright, but not the most academic student in the class, and although strong, resilient and extremely fast when he needed to be, he was not particularly athletically-inclined. It was a source of constant concern to his father that Bae had managed to gain one of the worst records in the school for fighting, but ultimately, there was nothing that either of them could do about the situation.

Despite his comparative lack of height and shoulder breadth, the majority of his peers knew that when Bae Gold squared up for a fight, he meant business, and when he turned the other cheek and began to pick up speed, you wouldn’t see him for dust.

Sadly, today, Bae had not fallen foul of his peers. He had fallen foul of a somewhat notorious group of boys from the high school who either did not know or did not care about his reputation, which meant that flight was really the only sensible option.

They were off school property, which was the clincher. Not that the school would have done anything had they been on the grounds – they had never intervened in any of Bae’s other altercations with the numerous bullies that had plagued his education thus far except to drag Bae off the provocateur and throw him in detention – but things were still less likely to kick off somewhere where there might be witnesses. As it was, the lads had cornered him on his way home from school, across the cornfields at the back of his house.

So Bae was running as fast as he could, his lungs burning and his eyes streaming, feeling like his legs could collapse under him at any moment and send him sprawling straight into the path of his pursuers. He could still hear their taunts following him, getting closer and closer.

“Hey, Lizard Boy, where are you going? Come back!”

_Lizard Boy_. Had Bae not been so focussed on removing himself from an increasingly dangerous situation, he would have been steaming mad. _Lizard Boy_. Anyone would think that he was the one with the scales, not his father, and his father didn’t even really have scales. But no, since his father had a somewhat unusual appearance, so Bae suffered by proxy, and had been suffering for as long as he could remember, ever since he was at that age where children begin to understand the concept of difference, and being different, and having a parent who was most definitely different to the rest.

There were times, such as these ones when the stitch in his side was threatening to overwhelm him and he had to keep pushing through the pain because the alternative was so much worse, when Bae hated his father for being a mutant. Once the situation had passed and he was safe at home, he would regret his bitter thoughts. It wasn’t exactly Dad’s fault he looked the way he did, and it wasn’t Dad’s fault that Bae’s school life was made hellish as a result of his father’s mutation.

“Hey, Lizard Boy!”

The voices were getting ever closer; Bae knew that his energy was flagging and he was slowing down. He’d run almost the full length of the cornfield at a sprint, and he could just see the fence that separated the houses from the field. He could see the dark roof tiles and salmon pink walls of his house. He was nearly home, nearly safe, just a few yards more…

He reached out, fancying that he could almost touch the overgrown grass of the garden beneath his fingertips and could almost see the roses and ivy climbing out of control around the kitchen door.

And then suddenly, he could see them, as clear as if he was standing right in front of them. The vision was slightly misty at the edges, like an old photograph or a dream sequence in a film, but right there in front of him was the kitchen door. He launched himself at it, grabbing hold of the cold metal handle, and he heard a soft blinking noise behind him. Bae turned, and found himself looking at the garden fence. The older boys were nowhere to be seen, and he could no longer hear their cawing in his ears.

He blinked, and with shaking hands, let go of the kitchen door handle, looking around at his surroundings. No, he was still in the garden, exactly as he had been, when only a few seconds before he had been in the middle of the field.

Had he… had he _teleported_?

There one minute. Here the next. It was the only possible explanation. Bae looked down at his hands. There didn’t seem to be anything different about them. His fingertips were slightly purple from the cold – he had lost his gloves somewhere in the field – but they were the same as they had always been. Tentatively he reached out towards the kitchen door; as freaked out as his sudden transportation was making him, he had to test his hypothesis.

Beyond the back door was the kitchen – flagged floor, pale walls, fridge in the corner. He visualised it in his mind, and concentrated hard on the door. Sure enough, a sliver of the kitchen appeared, misty at the edges like the vision had been before, and, hesitating for a moment, Bae stepped towards it. Once again, there was a soft blink behind him, and when he turned, he was inside the house; on the other side of the door without having come through it.

Bae sat down on the cold, scrubbed flagstones and stared down at his hands, shaking now more than they had been when he had first encountered the older boys and the adrenaline kicked in.

Ordinary people did not open teleportation portals. Ordinary people were capable of achieving many things, but that was not one of them. This could mean only one thing.

He’d got Dad’s genes.

More importantly, he’d got one particular gene. He’d got the Mutant X gene.

Well, the small, scientifically-inclined part of his brain reasoned. It made sense. Research had already shown that it was passed down the male line, so a man with a mutation was likely to father children who also had mutations. It was really only a matter of time before Bae’s own abilities manifested themselves, and what better time than when he was in a particularly bad fix? They’d certainly kicked in just in time to get him out of trouble. He should be thankful, really. If it weren’t for his dodgy genes, he’d probably be being beaten to a bloody pulp in the cornfield by now.

But those thoughts were pushed to one side by one slightly more primal and overarching one. He was a mutant. He had a mutation and weird powers, and now everything that his father had been through, he was about to go through himself. Bae felt sick. He’d never wanted this. When he was younger, before the taunting and teasing and bullying had begun, some of his friends had wondered wistfully what it would be like to be a mutant and be special and do amazing things with cool powers, but Bae had never shared their innocent dreams. He had seen first-hand what being special and doing amazing things with cool powers had done to his father, and he knew that he never, ever wanted it to happen to him.

And now it had done.

He felt sick, and he gradually got to his feet on wobbly legs, making his way over to the sink just in time to lose his lunch in it. Looking up at his reflection in the kitchen window, he half-expected to find his face greeny-gold and textured rough and scale-like, just like Dad’s, but it was the same as it always looked, if a little pale and blotchy from sickness.

“Bae?”

He heard Dad’s heavy, lopsided tread on the steps up from the basement, his footfalls interspersed with the thump of his cane. He was going as fast as he was able; as near to a run as he would ever get.

“Bae, are you all right? I didn’t hear you come in…”

Dad’s voice tailed off as Bae leaned over and retched into the sink again.

“Oh Bae…” Dad’s warm hand came down on Bae’s back between his shoulder blades, rubbing lightly as he shivered. “What’s up?”

Bae groaned and rested his forehead on the cool stainless steel of the sink as Dad leaned over to get him a glass of water, his claw-like nails scratching on the tap in his haste.

“Dad…”

It should have been easy to say it, after all, no-one would understand better than Dad, but the three simple words just wouldn’t come out. Dad would understand, all right, but Dad would not be happy.

“Yes, Bae?”

Bae took a sip of water and a deep breath.

“Dad, I’m a mutant.”

There was no reply, and as the wave of nausea began to subside, Bae risked a look up at his father. Dad’s yellowy-grey eyes were staring into the middle distance over the top of Bae’s head, and his face was unreadable.

“Dad, I’m sorry.”

Dad shook his head, and finally he met Bae’s eyes, giving a weak smile.

“Oh Bae, you don’t have anything to be sorry for. If anyone’s sorry around here, it’s me. I think it’s safe to say that this is my legacy. Come here.”

Bae leaned in against Dad’s shoulders and felt his arms come around him. After everything that he had been through, Dad was twitchy, never the most tactile of people, and Bae was much the same, not one for the comfort of human touch, but ever since he’d been little, Dad had always had a ready hug for Bae.  

“What happened?” Dad murmured. “What triggered it?”

“I was running… I was so close to the garden, and then I was in it. Without going through the gate. And then I got into the kitchen without going through the door.”

“I didn’t think I’d heard you come in,” Dad mused. “Go on, son.”

“I just saw it and then I was there. Like going through a portal.”

“You blinked,” Dad said. It didn’t surprise Bae that his father knew the technical term for it, if ‘blinking’ could be called a technical term. “Well, you’re not the first and you won’t be the last to do it.” He snaked a finger under Bae’s chin and tilted it up to meet his gaze once more, giving a smirk that would have been wry had his eyes not been so melancholy. “Welcome to the club. We’re a select bunch, but we’re all good souls at heart.”

Bae shook his head. “What am I going to do, Dad? What happens now?”

Dad shrugged, looking out into the garden.

“Now, you just continue living the way you’ve always done,” he said eventually. “What else can you do?”

Bae searched his father’s face for some more clues; that couldn’t be the extent of his advice. He’d been living with his mutation for forty years, surely there was something else to be said? Still Dad remained silent.

“Dad? That’s it? Just live with it?”

Finally Dad looked at him.

“There’s nothing else to do, Bae,” he continued. “You just go on. There’s no special ceremony, there’s no particular rite of passage that you have to go through in order to get your mutant certificate. One day it’s dormant, the next it roars into life, that’s just the way it is. You’ve just got to get on with things. This is just another part of your life, like your voice breaking.”

Bae shook his head.

“It’s not that simple, Dad!” he exclaimed. “This isn’t just another phase of puberty! Moraine Cope isn’t going to get acne one day and start creating portals through fences the next and just go on with her day, is she? No, because she’s normal! I’ve just discovered that I’m a different species of human!”

“Bae…”

“Ever since I’ve known what mutation is, ever since I understood what you were and what you do, I’ve dreaded this happening to me!”

“You didn’t want to end up like me,” Dad said. His voice was flat, emotionless.

“No I didn’t!” Bae said. He was shaking again, another rush of adrenaline beginning to rush around his veins, making him nauseous again. “Because I’ve seen what it’s done to you! It’s the biggest part of your life! It’s taken over! And now it’s happened to me and you say I should just ignore it and get on with my life?”

“Bae, there’s a slight difference between you and me…” Dad began.

Bae took a deep breath, trying to calm down.

“You can’t act like it doesn’t matter,” he said.

“It _doesn’t_ matter, Bae. You’re still the same Bae you always were.”

“But it matters to you!” Bae exclaimed. “You can’t act like it doesn’t matter,” he repeated, “because all my life I’ve grown up knowing how much it matters to you! All my life I’ve seen how much it affects you and how miserable it makes you. When was the last time you went outside, Dad?”

“This isn’t about me, Bae.” Dad sighed and turned the taps on hard to clean the sink before limping over to the kitchen table, sitting down and stretching out his bad ankle. “This is about you. I’ll admit that I haven’t been the best role model when it comes to… living with a mutation. But like I said, there’s a difference between you and me.”

“How?”

Dad raised an eyebrow. “Do I really have to answer that?” He gestured to his face, the abnormal colour and texture of his skin. “Your mutation is invisible. Mine is not. You’ve only ever seen me and the way I live with – or don’t live with – my mutation, and people’s reaction to it, which is… unfortunate. But what has happened to me, it won’t happen to you. Your power is a gift. Mine is more like a curse. You can hide in plain sight. No-one will ever know that you’re a mutant. I can’t hide out there, so I hide in here instead.”

“You shouldn’t have to hide at all, Dad,” Bae said, coming over to sit beside his father, and taking another sip of water. Dad shook his head with a weak laugh.

“The world doesn’t work that way, Bae. Appearances are everything, and mine is rather unfavourable. But yours is not. You can still go ahead and live your life the way you always planned to.”

Bae sighed. Dad’s words were true: most of his problems had come from his outward aspect and his mutation in itself had actually proved to be rather useful. There was no reason for Bae to secret himself away from the world now that his own mutation had manifested itself; that was just what he had always seen his father do. All the same, he had spent so long with his father that it was almost ingrained on his brain – mutations were something to hide, and once you had one, it was time to turn your back on the world in the same way that the world turned its back on you.

“Not without you,” he declared.

“Pardon?”

“Not without you,” Bae repeated. “If I’m going to go out and live my life with my mutation, then I want you to as well. If this is really a gift, if this is really nothing to worry about, then you have to show me that, because all I’ve ever seen from you is that this… _thing_ that we have is something to be ashamed of.”

“Oh good lord, Bae,” Dad exclaimed, “don’t be ashamed of yourself, of your mutation. Never think like that!”

“But how can I not when that’s all I’ve ever seen you do?”

Dad closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair with a groan, scrubbing his hands over his face.

“Bae, it’s not that simple, my circumstances are very different to yours, that’s what I’ve just been telling you!”

“But they’re not, though, when it comes down to it. You’re a mutant, I’m a mutant. Come out, Dad,” Bae wheedled. “Please. Just come out for half an hour. You haven’t left the house in days. We’ll just go to the end of the road for hot chocolate.”

“I think you’d be better off going with Morrie…”

“That’s not the point, Dad! The point is that if you’re so sure I can live a normal life, you’ve got to help me to live it.”

Bae could see Dad dithering, until finally he reached across the table, holding out his hand.

“Half an hour,” he said firmly. “And then I’m coming home.”

Bae smiled and shook his father’s hand. “The deal is struck. Go and put your warpaint on.”

Dad smiled and eased himself out of the chair, making his way out into the hall and the steps down to the basement, and Bae watched him leave. They’d always called it his warpaint, the make-up he put on before going out to do battle against the bigoted world at large. Just going to the little diner at the end of the road for a hot chocolate wouldn’t require much battle though. They used to do it all the time when Bae was younger and Dad wasn’t quite so reclusive. It was just the kind of normal thing that Bae needed to do with his father to reassure himself that everything was going to be all right, and this unexpected development need not turn his life upside down in the way that he had always feared it would.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

Rum looked at himself in the mirror critically as he dabbed the thick white cream over his face. It was the same face he had looked at ever since he was ten years old and his skin had first turned this inconceivable colour and texture, but he still never quite got used to seeing it. Well, it was not exactly the same face, obviously; it was older now, more lines around his eyes and mouth – and very few of them laughter lines. Now, he just had one more worry to add to his list.

Bae. Bae had got the genes too. Rum had known that it would be too much to hope that the curse had skipped a generation and left his son be.  After he’d passed his fourteenth birthday with no sign of anything untoward popping up in his DNA, Rum had begun to think that maybe they’d be all right, but it was not to be. At least Bae had been spared the skin, so he should be grateful for small mercies.

He finished his cover-up job and turned this way and that to check if he’d missed anywhere. Rum did not like going outside, the rigmarole that always preceded it being one of the reasons, but not the primary one. It was better in winter when he could cover up most of his hide with various layers of clothing. Had it been the height of summer, Bae would have had much more of a fight on his hands getting him to come out, but luckily, his son understood this well. He screwed the top back on the pot of make-up and patted talcum powder over it to set it. He looked incredibly and unnaturally white now, but that was far better than the alternative. Rum let out a melancholy huff of breath; he had almost forgotten what he had looked like with ordinary coloured skin, and it was always with a deep sigh that he was forcibly reminded that Bae had never seen him with it. To his son, having a green and somewhat scaly father was perfectly normal, and the fact that there was never any fear or loathing in Bae’s face when he saw Rum without make-up was something that he could take heart from. In fact, Bae had often remarked that he found his father’s made-up and ready-for-the-public face to be far more unnerving than his natural skin tone. It was true that even when he went out like this, people did still regard him with fear and suspicion, but not as much as if he had gone out uncovered. Gold remembered the last time that had happened with a shiver. It was not something that he would be repeating in a hurry.

He made his way over to the spinning wheel in the corner. Spinning always helped him to forget the unsavoury incidents of the past, because it required so much more concentration than anything else he did. It was still strung up from where he had been working earlier in the day, the straw lying innocently beside it, and he picked up a piece, threading it and closing his eyes as he set the wheel whirring. It was always easier if the molecules were in motion, which was why he used the spinning wheel. As the straw moved under his fingers, he focussed all his energy on finding the individual particles and the bonds between them, rubbing the yellow strands between his fingertips until the particles finally rearranged themselves into a new order, forging new links between them and becoming something entirely different, as a single piece of warm, straight straw became a delicate thread of pure, twenty-four carat gold.

Rum looked down at the fruits of his labour and smiled. That had relaxed his mind a little bit, put him into a better headspace. Spinning always did; his little failsafe. Now he was almost ready to face the world. Not that he was ever truly ready, whenever life deemed it necessary to intervene and force him to leave the nook he had carved out for himself over the years. He had suffered too much at the hands of the great outdoors ever to lose that wariness of it.

Presently he heard Bae’s footsteps on the stairs down to the basement.

“You ready, Dad?”

Rum looked in the mirror again.

“I think so. Double check me?”

Bae came into view around the bottom of the staircase and came over to the mirror, looking at his father’s face critically from all angles.

“You’re looking good to me.” He went over and perched on the workbench, watching Rum setting the room to rights before their outing. The basement was where Rum spent most of his days, hidden away, safe and sound and snug, far away from the world that hated him so much and that he hated in return. Here in the gloom, it was easier to pretend that the house was unoccupied and ignore anyone who might come to the door. Down here, Rum was master of his own domain, and his power was no curse, but a gift. His eyes wandered over to the spinning wheel in the corner again, and he resisted the urge to go over and give it another pull. If he started again now then he’d get carried away and Bae would never get him outside, which would be a shame considering he’d already gone to all the trouble of getting his warpaint on.

“Come on, let’s go,” Bae’s voice said, sensing his abstraction and hopping off the table, making towards the stairs. “Just to the diner, and then home again. It’s been ages since we’ve done anything normal.”

Rum grabbed his cane from the umbrella stand in the corner and together, father and son made their way back up into the house proper. He flexed his fingers over the gilded handle of the walking stick. Theoretically he could get about without it, although it always pained his leg somewhat to move without aid for any length of time, but pottering around the house he could generally do without his cane. Whenever he went out though, he needed it as a safety blanket if nothing else. Even through his gloves he could feel the particles of gold, soft and warm and pliable under his fingertips, just waiting, dormant and ever patient for his command. He needed the pull of the gold, it made him feel protected in a way, knowing that it was there and that if he had a hold of it, it would do whatever he willed it to, the atoms so willing to bend to his whims.

Not all metals reacted the same way, he’d found that out quickly when his gift had first begun to manifest all those years ago… Was it really forty years since this had first happened to him? It was only gold that he could manipulate effortlessly in the way that he did, which was why, down in the basement, he’d managed a very lucrative living for himself. Jewellery design and repair was not the business that he would ever have envisaged himself going into, but with the internet and mail order at his fingertips, it was a business that had kept him and Bae fed, clothed and sheltered for a long time, and since he never met his clients, well, never met them _anymore_ , no-one need ever know that he was not like other jewellers. Here he was hiding in plain sight in the only way that someone with his unusual appearance could. Rum Gold, jeweller, was a shadowy figure on the other end of a parcel or an email, and no-one would ever think to match him up to the strange man, obviously mutant, who lived in the salmon pink Victorian at the end of the road and never ventured out into the sunlight.

He had met clients in the past. Milah had been the last one he’d met in person, and when he thought about where that had led him, he had to sigh. There was a reason he never saw anyone face to face now, and Bae’s mother was it.

Rum shook his head. Now was not the time to be thinking about Milah. This was a time for Bae, and for, not celebration, that wasn’t exactly the right word, but more a very singular flip of the bird to the world that they both lived in and the genetics that had royally screwed them over. Rum’s eyes darted around the street as Bae locked up. There was no-one around, and the walk to the diner was a short one. He could manage it. He’d done it before often enough, and the people in the diner were usually of the sort who, if left alone, would leave everyone else alone. Mrs Lucas, the proprietress, had known Rum and Bae long enough, and if she was in any way unsettled by Rum’s presence in her establishment, then she didn’t show it, and thankfully they had never yet been in a position wherein her loyalties might have been tested and her true colours shown. There had been moments in the past, ones that Rum never cared to dwell on, when he had walked into a place with Bae and been immediately met with stony faces and an owner telling him to get out, that they didn’t serve _his_ kind. It was not the prejudice that had bothered him so much; that he was used to. He’d been receiving it for decades and it was nothing new to him. It was the fact that they had said these things in front of Bae. The humiliation of it all still burned him years later.

They reached the diner and Rum was glad of the warmth; spending his days inside, in the basement, with central heating – as creaky as the old house was, it still worked – the first dusting of winter’s snow was always a bit of a shock to his system whenever he had cause to go out in it. Bae ushered him towards the secluded little booth at the back of the diner that they nominally called ‘theirs’, and went to order hot chocolate.

“See, everything’s ok,” he said when he returned.

Rum nodded. So far, so good. He would admit that he had missed these moments with Bae, the moments when everything seemed so easy and the weight of the world wasn’t coming down on his shoulders.

“So, did you get much done today?” Bae asked eagerly. He had always taken an interest in his father’s work, which Rum had always found somewhat encouraging since one did not typically associate jewellery making as one of the pursuits typically enjoyed by teenage boys. Still, Bae had always found it fascinating to watch his father work, and one of Rum’s earliest memories of his son was as a babe in arms, when he had been mesmerised by the strands of gold that Rum had made into a mobile for him, twisting and twirling around in mid-air with no kind of support or outside influence, and ever since then, Bae loved to watch the way gold could move.

Rum shook his head. “It was mainly repair jobs today, but I think I’ve got a commission coming in soon.” Someone had emailed expressing an interest in some of his designs, and he was waiting on a response to his quote. He’d probably undercharged. He generally always did; because a cheap job was better than no job at all. Bae smiled, inviting him to speak more, and Rum started to outline the piece that he was going to make next. Granny brought their drinks over and left them be, but not before giving Bae a fond smile when he thanked her earnestly. It seemed to be genuine, and that was all that mattered. It was not a smile of pity, like he had sometimes seen given to his son. _Poor kid, imagine having to live with that for a father_ … He shook the thought away and focussed on Bae. It was Bae’s time now, and they would do whatever he wanted them to. All the same, Rum was still watching the clock. Half an hour, he had promised, so half an hour Bae would get, even if Rum was glancing around the diner with every unexpected sound. His jumpiness had only got worse as time had gone on. Someone with some degree of psychological know-how would probably put it down to the fact he spent so much time in his comfort zone, when he left it, he was even more aware, so he spent more time inside, and thus the vicious cycle continued. Rum wasn’t sure how to break it, and he was even less sure if he wanted to.

The diner door opened; from his position in the corner of the booth Rum couldn’t see who had come in but he could distinguish two voices, one male and one female, standing by the counter and ordering. Sensing his abstraction, Bae tailed off his sentence and glanced over his shoulder.

“It’s fine, Dad,” he began to say, but he never quite finished the words, his brow furrowing instead.

“Bae?” Rum craned his neck, trying to see what had captured his son’s attention. “Bae, what’s up?”

Bae made no response, but Rum could tell from the tone of Granny’s voice that whoever had just entered the diner, they were not welcome there. He couldn’t make out what was being said, the newcomers’ tones too low to be heard, but it appeared that Granny had lost the battle. Peering round the corner, he could just see the pair sitting down at a table in the far corner, and Rum had to double-take on seeing the woman’s face. Before he could get a good look at her, however, she was hidden from view behind her partner.

“Well, that was weird,” Bae muttered, turning back. “Anyway, where was I?”

Before Bae could continue, though, Granny came round the corner, a concerned expression on her face.

“You’ve got to get out of here,” she hissed, and she gestured over to the couple who had just come in. “Lay low for a bit. Leave town if you can.”

“What?” Bae said, glancing across at his father with wide, frightened eyes. Such a warning would not come lightly, and for it to have come so out of the blue, it must be serious indeed.

“What’s going on, Mrs Lucas?” Rum asked the older woman, trying not to let his fear show.

Granny jerked her head in the direction of the newcomers again. “I know their type. They work for the labs and they’re on the hunt.”

“What does that mean?” Bae asked. Rum couldn’t reply; the cold trickle of icy fear had just begun to run down his back, and he couldn’t shake it off. Not this time. This wasn’t his paranoia getting the better of him, this wasn’t just him being jumpy. This was a very real danger.

The labs. Everyone in their little community of outcasts knew those words, and everyone felt that same cold shiver of fear when they heard them. The labs, those shadowy places where mutants were picked off and taken for all kinds of experimentation, off the books, off the record, off the map.

“Bae, we’re leaving,” he said.

Bae didn’t protest, and stood up quickly, following Rum out of the booth.

“Come out through the back,” Granny said, motioning for them to follow her through into the kitchen instead of having to go out of the front door of the diner, straight past the hunters. “I’ll give you a head start.” At the door that led to the alleyway outside the kitchen, she caught Rum’s arm. “There’s a place in upstate New York, Salem. It’s a safe place, for people like you.” She paused. “For people like you and my Ruby. She’s safe there, you’ll be safe there too if you can get there. I forget the name, it starts with an X, can’t be too hard to find.” Granny smiled, a sad, wan smile that told of many regrets and an absent relative much missed. Rum hadn’t realised that Granny’s welcoming them in her domain might have to do with the fact that she too was on the fringes of their world.

“Good luck, Rum.”

Rum returned her sad smile. “Thank you, Mrs Lucas.”

She gave a brief nod then shooed at them with her tea towel.

“Go on, be off with you! There’s no time to dawdle.”

Rum didn’t need telling twice, and he and Bae began to make their way down towards the end of the alley at as fast a pace as Rum’s leg would allow, Bae leading the way and his father following on. Presently, Bae stopped and ducked off down a little side street, pulling Rum with him.

“Bae, where are we going?” he asked, his fear becoming ever more apparent as he allowed himself to be dragged. He trusted Bae implicitly, that was not the issue, but he did not like it when these things happened so unexpectedly and he definitely didn’t like not knowing where he was going. A light dusting of snow was beginning to fall from the thick, yellow-ish clouds above them, and Rum cursed; the make-up was going to run and he didn’t have an umbrella.

“Trust me, Dad, it’s a shortcut,” Bae said. “I’ve had to make quick getaways before.”

Rum didn’t need reminding of his son’s almost daily struggles with bullies, and he pushed the thought to the back of his mind, almost careening into Bae when the younger boy stopped suddenly.

“Bae?”

Anything that Rum could have said flew out of his brain completely when he saw why Bae had stopped and started backing up. They had just run straight into trouble. A man was blocking the end of the narrow alley that they had ducked into; his arms folded and a wry smile across his features. He was waiting for them.

“Dad…”

“I know, son…”

He could feel the particles of gold in his cane handle through the thick gloves, but he was going to need to get skin contact in order to do anything of any worth. He was hoping it wouldn’t come down to that, but Rum had been in enough situations similar to this one in the past to know that a peaceful resolution was not normally how these things played out.

Rum grabbed Bae's shoulder and pushed his son behind him roughly.

"Bae, run."

"Dad..." Bae was not usually one to argue, especially not in a situation as obviously dangerous as this one, but there was the slightest note of panic in the usually calm and practical boy's voice. Rum glanced over his shoulder to find that they were trapped, cut off in the alley. The woman from the diner was at the other end, blocking off Bae's escape, and now that he could see her clearly, Rum could see that his eyes had, sadly, not been deceiving him.

Milah. His first love, the mother of his child, and the woman who had burned him so very badly.

"It's been a long time, Rum," she said, and in any other circumstances her voice would have been conversational and pleasant, an ordinary greeting in passing between two people who had once been married.

He did not give her the satisfaction of a response, just shifting slightly to try and keep himself between Bae and their pursuers.

"Dad..." Bae whispered again. He sounded so small and young, so scared, and Rum took a deep breath. Bae had always been the brave one in their little family of two, but he was the child, and Rum was the parent, and it was time for Rum to be brave for the both of them. Milah was looking at Bae, head on one side.

"Well, at least he turned out vaguely normal," she said.

Rum refused to rise to the challenge in her voice. Something in the back of his mind told him that he was going to have to have this conversation with Bae once they were out of the woods; he'd have to explain that the woman hunting him down was the mother who'd given him up and walked out of his life as soon as he was born. Out of the corner of his eye, Rum could see the man coming towards them.

"Always running, always hiding," Milah continued. "You haven't changed a bit, Rum. Still the same cowardly freak you always were."

He wouldn't rise to it. He couldn't rise to it, not with Bae there, not when he needed to protect his boy as well as himself. Rum set his weight, hooked his cane into the crook of his elbow and pulled off his gloves. The man at the other end of the passageway gave a cruel laugh.

"The gloves are off. I thought you said he'd be an easy catch, Milah. Looks like we're going to have a fight on our hands."

Milah snorted. "Some fight - he can barely walk."

Rum shook his head, and all the pain and rage that he had put to one side since Milah left came flooding back as he grabbed his cane again, immediately feeling the gold ready for his command.

"Dad!" Bae screamed as Rum swung the cane in an arc through the air, the metal singing for him like it always did. The man raised one eyebrow, taking a step back out of the arc.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing with that, old man?" he asked snidely.

"Never underestimate someone who is acting for their child," Rum snarled, although for some reason, the words ended up directed more at Milah than at her companion. How could she stand there so calmly when her son was here, in such grave danger? But speaking of Bae, still pressed in tightly behind him... Now that Milah had moved down towards them, there was an opening at the end of the alley.

"Run, Bae!" Rum hissed over his shoulder, nodding to the gap.

Bae looked up at him, eyes wide, and Rum nodded. He couldn't say 'I'll be fine'; he couldn't offer any kind of reassurance that his son wanted to hear, but in the end it didn't matter to him whether he was all right or not, just as long as Bae was.

Bae didn't need to be told twice, and he sped off towards the end of the alley and the safety of Granny's just as Rum felt a heavy blow in the small of his back, throwing him forward onto his hands and knees and sending the cane flying out of his grasp.

"What a shame, he was just shaping up to impress me," the man said, delivering another kick and sending Rum sprawling.

Milah laughed, and the sound was just as grating in his ears as it had been fourteen years ago.

"I don't think Rum has ever impressed anyone, Killian." She bent down to look at him, struggling on the slippery ground. "I never realised you were so sentimental, Rum," she said, nodding towards his left hand. Rum knew what she was looking at. Despite their divorce being almost fifteen years ago, Rum still wore his wedding ring, although it was not due to any kind of mourning of the love that he had lost. It was for the simple reason that the ring was gold. He could feel it, warm and humming against his skin, and as Milah stamped down on his wrist, the particles reformed themselves under his touch, the ring growing and bending into a fine rope, which he snaked around her ankle and pulled as hard as he could, tripping her up and sending her sprawling on the ground. Still winded, and with no cane in sight, Rum tried to get to his feet gingerly, but another blow from Killian had him back on the floor.

"Careful, Killian, we need to deliver him in one piece." Milah was back on her feet, yanking the rope out of his grip and tossing it aside, where it shrank back into its original form. She kicked it aside and Rum cursed inwardly. "They'll be doing enough damage later."

Rum was just about ready to give himself up for lost. He thought of Bae, hoping he'd got far away, and that Milah and Killian would not pursue him, thinking he had no powers.

And then he saw it, a single flash of colour that no-one who was not as used to the sight as he was would have been able to see. Gold. A single spot of gold in the depths of Killian's mouth. He had a gold capped tooth. If Rum could just get at that gold... He let Killian get in as close as he could, and smacked his fist into the younger man's jaw as hard as he could, dislodging the gold premolar and watching it fly through the air into the snow. The man himself staggered backwards, cursing from the blow, but Rum had forgotten about Milah. Milah, who knew him and his powers inside out.

"No, Killian, the gold, don't let him get the gold!"

It was too late, Rum had already picked up the small piece of bloodied yellow metal and was feeling grow and reshape in his hands, the molten gold running over his fingers and reforming into something he could use as a weapon. It was so small there were not really enough particles to work with, but he could make a monofilament thread, razor sharp and ready to swing. He struck out with the thread, catching Milah across the face and scoring a bloody line down her cheek. She hissed with pain, and as he got to his feet again, Rum saw her hand go to the holster at her hip. He didn't wait to find out what was in it, smacking the thread against her hand, slashing it open. The motion stopped her, but it also threw off Rum's balance, putting all his weight onto his bad ankle, which gave way beneath him.

He staggered sideways, straight into Killian.

The knife stung as it plunged into his side, but the pain was not as great as Rum would have expected, although it threw off his already precarious balance and brought him to his knees.

"Dad!"

Bae's voice was right next to his ear, and through the misty haze of pain from his side and his screaming ankle, Rum could see the fuzzy shimmer surrounding him as skinny arms grabbed him round his waist, hauling him backwards. As the portal closed around them, he heard Killian scream, and looked down to see that the teleportation field had cut off his hand, still holding the blade lodged in Rum's side.

"Dad, are you ok? Dad? Papa?"

Bae had saved him; used his gift, still so fresh and untested, to blink them out of there. Quite a long way out of there, if the surroundings were anything to go by. It was snowing heavily, and Rum could feel it washing off his make-up as he fell backwards onto the hard, wet ground with a groan, closing his eyes against the pain.

"I'll be fine, Bae," he said weakly, scrabbling for his son's hand. "Don't fret."

As consciousness slipped away, the last thing that Rum heard was Bae's voice: so small, so young, so frightened.

"Help!"

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Moira McTaggart makes a little appearance in this chapter. Unlike all other characters, I'm using comic'verse Moira, not film'verse.

**Chapter Four**

**Fourteen years ago…**

_Hello Belle_.

The voice was in her head, and it was not a voice that Belle remembered ever hearing in her life before. She scrambled up from her position, curled up and shivering in the knotted tree roots, looking around for who could be speaking to her – and speaking to her directly, without the sound going in through her ears. Whoever it was knew her name, and immediately she thought of the asylum staff, out looking for her.

_Please don’t be alarmed_ , the voice in her head said. _Keep your thoughts clear and calm, as much as you can. I am here to help you. My name is Professor Charles Xavier._

“How can I trust you?” Belle asked, still looking around for the source of the voice. She could hear dormant thoughts from quite a distance, but this voice was so clear in her head, speaking directly to her just as she had done to Roger, surely he must be closer, but there was no sign of another soul in the gloom.

_Because I’m like you, Belle. I share your gift_.

He was a telepath, just like she was. Had she not been so scared and highly strung already, Belle would have made the logical connection, but having expended so much mental energy in her quest to escape, she wasn’t thinking straight.

_It’s all right, you’re safe now, we’ll make sure you’re all right. You’ve done admirably to get as far as you have done. It’s quite the power you have there. With a little training, you should be able to make good use of that._

Belle was a little taken aback by the casual acceptance of her gift as not only an important part of her but also something that could and should be used to her advantage, as opposed to something to hide. She again looked around for the mysterious professor who was the source of these soothing thoughts, but he was nowhere to be found. Presently, she heard footsteps crunching through the forest in the darkness, and she pressed herself up against the rough tree trunk, closing her eyes and holding her breath, trying to make herself as small as possible.

_Don’t be afraid, the person you can hear is my friend, Hank McCoy. He’s come to bring you to safety; I use a wheelchair and I can’t come to you myself. He’ll be with you in a moment. Please don’t be alarmed by his appearance. He is a mutant like you and I, but his gifts manifest physically._

The footsteps came closer, and Belle forced herself to breathe, in through her nose and out through her mouth.

_That’s it, one breath at a time. We’ll get you through this, there’s no need to fear any more._

There was every reason to fear, in Belle’s mind. She was about to be abducted by two complete strangers, who, even if they were like herself, were still complete strangers. Trusting them went against every mantra that she’d had drilled into her head as a child. Never talk to strangers, never trust people you don’t know… But then again, trusting the people that she did know – namely her father – was what had led her to be in this position in the first place. What was the worst that could happen if she went with them, anyway? It could not be much worse than the alternatives open to her: dying of exposure out here in the woods, or being caught by the asylum staff and sent to the lab to be a living test subject. The professor in her head seemed to be a genuinely caring man; his mental voice was kind and he wanted to help her, and she was sure that his associate was the same.

The footsteps stopped and she heard another voice, one that came in through her ears this time.

“Ok, Charles, I’ve found her.”

Belle peered out around the tree trunk, and she shrunk back on instinct when she saw the man in the moonlight.

He was blue. And furry. And he looked, to all intents and purposes, like a monster from one of her fantasy books from when she was a kid.

_I know he looks ferocious, but you honestly have nothing to fear, Belle_ , the professor’s voice in her head assured her. For his part, Hank just smiled at her reaction, a slightly sad smile, and Belle felt a little guilty, wondering how long he had looked like this and how many times people had shrunk back from him in fear like she had just done.

“Are you Hank?” she asked.

He nodded. “You must be Belle. A pleasure to meet you.”

He held out a large, almost paw-like hand, and Belle shook it tentatively.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, brow furrowed in concern.

Belle shook her head slowly.

“No. Just my head hurts. But that’s just…”

_You just pushed a little too far on your first attempt_ , the professor said gently. _The feeling will pass, I promise._

“That’s just my powers,” Belle finished with a shrug, unable to go into the intricacies of quite how her mutation worked when her head was pounding so much.

Hank nodded. “Ok, let’s get you back to the plane, I’ll take a look at your nose on the way back to the school.”

Belle brought her hand up to her nose; it was still oozing blood a little but in the heavy rain she had not noticed it.

“Where are you going to take me?” she asked the huge blue man, keeping hold of his hand as they picked their way through the woods together, both of them keeping an eye out for anyone from the hospital who might be continuing the search after dark.

“New York State,” Hank replied. “Salem. The professor runs a school, a safe place for people like us. You can stay there, you’ll be welcome.”

It certainly did seem like an inviting option, and even though she was not entirely sure if she trusted Hank and the voice in her head, it was a good idea to go with them and get out of the rain and wet if nothing else. Something in the back of her mind made her wary. She had not been to school in four years; she’d barely had contact with other human beings at all, let alone peers her own age. What was life going to be like for her in this new place?

_Everything will work out, Belle_ , the professor assured her. He had gone so quiet that she had forgotten that he was there in her head. _I’m going to leave you in privacy with your own thoughts now, but I’m still close if you need me. I’ll see you very soon._

Although she had not noticed him come in and had not felt him whilst he was in her mind, Belle felt the moment that the professor left her thoughts, a sort of dampener that she had not noticed had been lifted, and she felt able to express herself more freely now that she was assured that there would be no interruptions. She had never been on the receiving end of her own mutation before and she couldn’t say it was a pleasant experience. She wondered how Roger had felt, before deciding that she really didn’t care one way or the other.

“We’re parked through here.” Hank led the way through the trees.

The jet was sleek and black, and even though she had no real knowledge of these kind of things, Belle could tell that it was probably custom built. As they neared the ramp that led up into the plane, Belle was suddenly very aware that she was wet and dripping all over the exquisitely shiny aircraft. The interior was functional and minimalist, and devoid of life except for a bald man in one of the seats towards the front, who turned to greet them as they entered and Hank hit a button to raise the ramp and seal the doors.

“Good evening, Belle,” the man said. The voice was the same as the one in her head; this was the professor. “Charles Xavier, pleased to meet you.”

Belle shook his hand tentatively, looking around at the plane in awe.

“Yes, she is something, isn’t she?” The professor chuckled.

“Here you go.” Hank had returned to them and was wrapping a thick blanket around Belle’s shoulders; it was only now that she was inside the warm plane that she realised just how cold it had been outside. “Your nose looks like it’s stopped oozing as well but I still want to take a look at it.”

“Hank is a doctor, of genetics primarily but with some medical knowledge,” the professor explained. “I thought that given your situation, mentioning that immediately would not be a good idea. Now, I think our presence is about to be noticed.”

Through the front window of the cockpit, Belle could see the bouncing lights of torch beams coming closer and closer to the plane, and she could hear snatches of the thoughts of the owners, coming to investigate the strange shape that had landed in their field. They were currently convinced that it was an alien spaceship, and Belle had to smile at the notion.

“Take us home, please, Hank,” the professor said. “Belle, do make yourself comfortable.”

Belle took a seat beside the professor and strapped herself in, still cuddled up in her blanket, as Hank settled himself in the pilot’s seat and began the pre-flight necessities. As the jet engine powered up, the scattered thoughts of the torch-bearers became panicked and confused, and they started to run for cover, convinced of their being abducted and taken away to Mars for probing. Beside her, she thought she saw the professor smile too, and she wondered if he could hear the same things that she was hearing.

“Will you tell me about your school, please?” Belle asked, once the plane was on autopilot and Hank was crouched in front of her, gently cleaning up her bloody face with supplies from the plane’s first-aid kit.

“It’s a haven for children and young adults with mutations,” the professor explained. “You can complete your education there in peace, and learn to control and use your gifts in a safe environment, with others your own age, who share your experiences. All of our students have come from situations where they are at risk – runaways, or on occasion, like yourself, escapees. I know what it’s like to feel different, the odd one out, and I want to make sure that no-one misses out because of their genetic coding.”

Belle gave a weak smile, still concerned about her lack of secondary education thus far.

_Don’t worry about your missing years_ , the professor added mentally. _With the right support, you’ll soon catch up_.

“So, where will I stay?” she asked.

“We have plenty of dormitories at the school,” the professor assured her. “We have quite a few students at the moment, so you’ll be sharing with two other girls around your age to start with, and we’ll see how you get on. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

Well, if anyone would know if she would be fine or not, he would. Gradually, Belle’s confidence was growing, and the thought of a fresh start in this new place, where no-one knew who she was and no-one knew or cared about her past, only her present and her future, was not quite as scary as it had been at first, out there in the dark.

Hank proclaimed her nose to be fine and returned to the pilot’s seat, and presently a voice came over the plane’s radio.

_“How’s it going, did you find her?”_

It was a male voice, with a thick Italian accent.

“Yes, Marco, we’ve found her. Just in time, but the looks of things,” Hank replied. “How are things back there?”

_“Not bad, not bad. Moira and I finally managed to get the young ones back into bed. You know how they get when they see the jet leave. Moira is getting a place ready for our new arrival.”_

“All right, thanks for the update. We’re about fifteen minutes out; we’ll see you soon.”

The conversation ended and Belle continued to look out over the expanse of darkness that surrounded them, looking out for their destination. There could be no mistaking it once she eventually saw it; the house was absolutely huge, and there was a large lit space that they were evidently aiming for. Hank brought the plane in to land and the platform began to sink down into the ground. Suddenly nervous again, Belle watched out of the cockpit window until the large mansion vanished from view, leaving them in a large, well-lit hangar below ground.

“Welcome to Xavier’s Institute for Gifted Youngsters,” the professor said. “I hope you’ll be happy here.”

They came to a stop, and Hank went over to lower the ramp whilst Belle undid her harness and carefully shuffled towards the door in her still soggy stockings, peering out. There were two people waiting at the bottom; a woman around Hank’s age and a slightly older man.

“It’s ok, we don’t bite,” the woman said. “You’re safe here. I’m Moira, and this is Marco.”

Belle had guessed as much, and she gave a wan smile, concentrating on their thoughts, still not entirely trusting and in need of reassurance as to their motives. Marco was thinking in Italian, which didn’t help, but Moira’s train was clear.

_Poor thing, she looks thin as a rake, and they had her in a hospital too… Best leave the medical check-up till tomorrow, don’t want to spook her, don’t even want to think about what might have happened there… Thank goodness you found her when you did, Charles._

Aloud, she said three magical words that Belle hadn’t even realised she had been waiting to hear.

“Are you hungry?”

She was never given quite enough to eat as it was, so a permanent feeling of hunger was nothing new to her, but Belle had missed dinner thanks to her flight, and now her stomach was making it very clear that it was not happy about that. She nodded enthusiastically, and Moira grinned.

“Come on, let’s do something about that. What’s your name?”

“I’m Belle,” she said. “Belle French.”

“Come on Belle. I’m sure I can persuade Marco to whip you up some spaghetti.”

Belle’s tummy gave an appreciative growl; she hadn’t had spaghetti in four years. She hadn’t had anything remotely resembling good food in four years, but pasta was one thing she had definitely missed.

“Ah, Moira, the things I do for you.” Marco sighed. “How can I resist your pleading eyes? Spaghetti it is.”

Belle cast a final glance back at Hank and the professor before she began her descent into the hangar, and they both smiled at her.

_You’re safe now_ , the Professor told her in her mind. _Everything’s going to be all right_.

With that assurance in mind, Belle left the plane and followed Marco and Moira through the corridors, into an elevator and up. When they arrived at their destination, there was no mistaking their location, inside the huge manor house that the jet had landed beside. Even in the semi-darkness, it was a thing of beauty, and Belle could only look around in awe as she continued to follow the two adults through the hallways towards the kitchen. As they arrived, Belle heard more snatches of thoughts behind the door, followed immediately by words.

_Someone’s coming! Moira, Marco, unknown._

“Storm, hide quick!”

Moira and Marco looked at each other and exchanged a wry smile.

“Well, we don’t need three guesses as to who that is,” Moira muttered, opening the door and putting the lights on to reveal a kitchen that was ostensibly empty but for the open tubs of ice cream out on the counter. Moira gave an exaggerated sigh.

“Girls, I know you’re there. It might be easier to convince us you’re not if you put the ice cream back in the freezer.”

Two faces popped up from behind the counter, one black with long white hair and the other pale, a brunette with bright red stripes.

“Since you’re here, you may as well introduce yourselves to your new roommate,” Moira said, guiding Belle to the large table in the centre of the kitchen and encouraging her to sit, blanket and all. “I’ll go and find you some warm clothes.”

The two girls came out from behind the counter and sat down on the other side of the table, grinning broadly. They both looked to be about Belle’s age, and she immediately felt better in their presence, less inclined to believe that this was all some kind of elaborate ruse designed by the asylum to break her spirit. She was truly on her way to something better now.

“I’m Ruby,” the one with red streaks said. “This is Ororo, but we all call her Storm.”

“I’m Belle,” Belle replied, curling her hands around the cup of tea that Marco handed to her. “Why do they call you Storm?”

Storm’s smile widened, and as it did, her eyes began to cloud over, the irises merging with the whites.

“Storm, don’t you dare,” Marco warned from the stove where he was preparing the spaghetti. He wasn’t looking at her, and Belle wondered if he was some kind of telepath too or if he just knew the girl well enough to know what she was planning. “You’ll wake the entire school.”

Although Belle was too tired to be able to properly focus on the buzzing of the background thoughts in the kitchen, she received the distinct impression of a rolling thunderstorm with crashing thunder and sharp lightning. Storm, it seemed, could control the weather, and her name was a fitting one.

“Not even a little one?” Storm asked.

“Not even a little one. Everyone’s already had enough excitement for one night, and I have more important things to do than shepherd everyone back to bed for a second time.”

“Yes, like making spaghetti,” Ruby said. “Can I have some?”

“You had some earlier!”

“I know, but that was six hours ago, I’m hungry again now!”

“You’re always hungry, Ruby,” Storm pointed out before reaching over and shoving one of the ice cream tubs at her friend, then turning back to Belle. “Welcome to the Institute,” she said. “It’s not always like this, I promise.”

Ruby gave a snort of laughter and dug into the ice-cream. Storm nudged her in the ribs and hissed: “you’re not helping!”

“Ok, ok, it’s not always like this,” Ruby conceded. “Most of the time it’s like a normal boarding school. But with cool powers. Marco, are you _sure_ I can’t have any spaghetti? It smells so good!” she moaned. “Downside to heightened senses,” she added. “Marco’s cooking is completely irresistible.”

At the stove, the older man bowed, and Belle smiled. Heightened senses would explain how come she had been able to identify them before they had entered the room. Sipping her tea, she listened to the two girls bantering back and forth with Marco, and by the time Moira returned with some dry pyjamas and more blankets, she was laughing along with them.

Things were already looking up. Belle could see a future here, with these girls, in this place. She had only been here a few minutes and already she felt safe and welcomed so easily into this strange little set-up, almost like a family.

It felt like _home_.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

“Ok, we’re nearly there. Has the professor given you the co-ordinates?”

Belle opened her eyes just as Storm glanced over at her from the pilot’s seat, and she shook her head.

“Not yet, but we must be getting close.” Closing her eyes against the distractions of the lights and dials in the cockpit, Belle focussed on pushing her consciousness out and leaving her mind clear for the professor’s instructions again. With Cerebro he could reach anyone, anywhere in the world, but a connection to a fellow telepath was always facilitated when that person in question could reach out to him in return, meeting him halfway, so to speak.

_Got a pinpoint, Prof?_

There was nothing for a while, just Storm’s thoughts in the background, concentrating on manoeuvring the jet and lessening the heavy snow storm clouds at the same time, then a clear message came through with the co-ordinates they needed. Belle relayed them to Storm and mentally clocked out of her connection to the professor.

“Storybrooke, huh?” Storm raised her eyebrows as she adjusted the plane’s course. “That’s your neck of the woods, isn’t it?”

Belle nodded. “Yep. Never thought I’d be making a return visit. I didn’t exactly leave it on good terms.”

Storm looked over at her, her face concerned. “Are you going to be ok?”

“I’ll be fine. Honestly. It’s not like we’re going to be staying for long. Just get in, case the situation and pick up if necessary. I think it will be necessary, I’m afraid to say. I caught a snatch whilst I was talking to the professor. Whoever it is, they’re distressed.”

Catching snips of distressed and panicked thoughts were the worst for a telepath; you could feel the turbulent emotions almost as strongly as the subject did, and in so many occasions there was nothing that could be done to ease their pain. Still, hopefully they would be able to help this particular person. It was only by chance that they had heard this desperate cry for help. The professor had been using Cerebro when a single thought, comparatively close by, had called out to him, with such painful desperation that he had immediately started making arrangements, getting Storm to ready the jet and head straight out, asking Belle to go with her.

“He’s very afraid,” the professor had warned her whilst they were prepping, before he went to get a proper read on the boy and pinpoint his exact location. “I think it would be best for you to go with Storm to calm him, if you can get inside his head and convince him that we mean him no harm then it may make your task a little easier.”

Belle never minded going out on collection trips with Storm or the others. Although she would be the first to admit that her gift was not the best served as an offensive one, not like Storm’s or Scott’s, it was none the less a useful one in situations like this, especially when there were kids involved. It saddened her somewhat, that they had these calls and found these children in such desperate circumstances as a result of their mutations, but she reasoned that if the professor never heard their appeals for help, then they would never _be_ helped, and their circumstances would never improve.

“I’m going to take us down now,” Storm said. “We’re about half a mile out but there’s a nice space to land the jet here.”

Belle looked around at the misty clouds and the patchwork of ground below them, and she suppressed a shiver.

“I saw that, you know,” Storm said. “Are you sure that you’re going to be all right?”

“Yes,” Belle said firmly. “Yes, I’m fine. I just… I remember those woods. This is where the professor and Hank first picked me up.”

It was cathartic, in a way, returning to the point where her life had changed so completely and knowing that hopefully, she was going to do for someone else what the professor had once done for her: offering her a chance and a hope for a better life. It was a way of coming full circle.

Storm brought the jet in, still hidden in cloud cover from the eyes of anyone who might be watching out here in Maine’s snowy wilderness, and Belle waited until her white-haired friend had killed the engines and done her final safety checks before speaking.

“Let’s get this show on the road.”

Storm nodded and together the two women left the jet. Belle pushed out, sweeping the area for thought patterns as she walked along through the snow.

“Getting anything?” Storm asked, the abstraction in her voice apparent as she focussed on clearing the clouds to allow them a safe passage to their destination. Belle shook her head; to all intents and purposes they were the only people for miles around. “Well, I guess all we can do is keep moving. He’s got to be around here somewhere.”

Belle scanned around again, searching for new thought patterns in the air around her. The ringing in her ears from the wind wasn’t helping, but then she caught it, the same desperate pleading that she had heard through the professor.

_Help! Someone please help!_

“I’ve got him,” she said, breaking off into a run through the snow with Storm hot on her trail. The clouds had fully cleared now and a bright silver moon was illuminating the forest. Belle locked onto the boy’s thoughts, and pushed one of her own out towards him.

_Help is on the way._

She heard his mental squawk of alarm, and wondered if she had given a similar one when the professor had first sent a message into her head all those years ago.

“He’s this way,” Belle said aloud to Storm, following the boy’s mental signature. To the boy, she sent another thought. She didn’t like remaining in his mind for too long at a time, even after so many years of honing her gift, it still felt intrusive to spend any length of time combing a person’s thoughts. She preferred direct communication, unless her subject was proving particularly reticent.

_My name is Belle, I’m a mutant like you, a telepath – that’s how I’m talking to you now. What’s happened? Are you injured?_

The response, although still fearful and panicked, was clear, and came a moment later.

_I’m all right but my dad’s badly hurt, he’s been stabbed._

Belle swore out loud and Storm turned to her with alarm. She couldn’t hear any other conscious thoughts in the vicinity, so the father was definitely out for the count. Suddenly this simple pick-up job wasn’t very simple any more.

“We’ll need Jean on standby,” Belle said. “It’s not just the boy.”

She focussed on the boy again.

_Is your dad a mutant too?_

They broke the tree cover and came upon the two at the edge of the woods, a line in the snowfall showing where the boy had dragged his father over to cover. The young teen startled at the appearance of the two women, scrabbling to cover his unconscious charge, and Belle and Storm held their hands up.

“It’s ok, we’re here to help,” Belle said. “I’m Belle, this is Storm.”

The boy nodded, letting them closer, and immediately Storm fell to checking the father over. The boy was canny despite his panic; he’d made a makeshift bed of pine needles to insulate him; but all the same, Belle was glad they’d brought the survival kits from the jet with them.

“What’s your name?” Belle asked, shaking out a silver shock blanket and wrapping it around the boy.

“Bae. Baelfire Gold. My dad’s Rum. How did you find us?”

“By accident, but we’re very glad we did. We have a plane, we’re going to take you somewhere safe where we can help you and your dad. It won’t take very long, we’re only going as far as New York.”

“Salem?” Bae asked tentatively. There was a tone of hope in his voice and Belle turned to him sharply.

“How did you know that?”

“That’s where we were headed. Granny… Mrs Lucas told us we’d be safe there.”

_What’s going on?_ Storm asked mentally.

_Ruby’s gran has been helping the cause,_ Belle replied. To Bae, she spoke aloud: “Yes, Salem, the Xavier Institute.”

Storm appeared to have finished up with Rum and was sitting back on her haunches. Belle sent a thought out to her.

_How’s he doing, Storm? We’ll need a stretcher._

_He’ll make it, the wound doesn’t look deep, but he’s frozen to the bone. Dammit, why didn’t we bring Jean?_

Belle shook her head. _She was busy. It’s ok, we’ve got one of Marco’s prototypes in the jet, may as well use it._

She got to her feet and took off back through the forest towards where the plane was parked, racing up the ramp into the belly of the aircraft and pulling one of the panels off the wall. Marco’s gift, that of giving life to inanimate objects, had never yet been thought of as something that they could use in their everyday work, but since he had begun working to hone it into something more controllable, various small devices that could move of their own accord were starting to make their way into circulation. The stretcher on feet was one of them. Belle set it down on the floor and its little feet sprung to life, running backwards and forwards a little before finally going in the direction it was meant to, with a little shepherding from Belle.

“Come on little one, this way.”

It did not take long to return to the others and manoeuvre Rum onto the stretcher, which wobbled a little on its legs before beginning its tramp back through the woods to the jet with Belle, Storm and Bae in tow. Even in his still-bleak circumstances, Bae managed a smile at the stretcher. Belle was not sure how much time they had before it ran out of power – Marco’s transformations were not permanent – but it made sense to use it whilst they could. It got halfway up the ramp before it stopped, giving up the ghost and letting Belle and Storm pick it up and carry it the final few feet. Once inside, Storm rushed to make the plane ready for take-off whilst Belle got their injured charge warm and comfortable, keeping an eye on Bae at the same time.

_Bae_ , she said, announcing her presence in his mind _, I need to find out what’s happened. You don’t need to tell me, I can look at your memories if you’re ok with that._

_That’s fine_ , Bae replied. _I don’t really want to talk about it yet._

She beckoned for him to lean in closer and she gently touched her fingertips to his temple, going straight into his memory store and combing through the pictures. She saw him being chased through a frozen field, his first blink teleport, and she felt the fear he had felt. His second teleport, his father, a spinning wheel with golden thread, his father with make-up, a diner, Ruby’s grandmother, a couple that Bae had instinctively felt fear of, running away, Mrs Lucas’s words of advice…

She saw him run away as Rum bought him time, and she saw him blink back to get his father just as the knife drove home…

Belle pulled away and gave a weak smile.

“Thank you, Bae. It’s all right, you’re going to be safe now.”

“How’s it looking back there?” Storm asked from the cockpit. “I’ve contacted the house, Jean’s ready and waiting and Marco’s already offering emergency spaghetti.”

“We’re doing all right,” Belle said, but despite the brightness in her tone, her thoughts were troubled. Bounty hunters going after unsuspecting mutant families… This was definitely something that the professor needed to hear about. Something was very wrong in the world, not that it wasn’t already, but now things had reached a whole new level. Belle knew about mutants being taken for lab experiments only too well, but in her case they were mutants who were already incarcerated on some level. Just grabbing them off the streets, well, it hardly bore thinking about.

The Bluebird made the journey back to the house in record time, Storm keeping the skies clear all the way, and it was still early evening when they arrived; the lights were on in the main house and Belle could see people milling around in the rooms and corridors, watching the jet come in to land on the basketball courts. Even though they had seen it before, the sight never failed to mesmerise the students. Hell, it mesmerised Belle whenever she saw the plane come in and out, and she had travelled on it too many times to count. She glanced over at Bae, but he was too occupied with his dad to have any kind of first impression of the mansion, and Belle could forgive him that. Now that they were back, she took a moment to properly take in the unconscious man’s appearance. She had been looking at him all during the flight and she had seen him, awake and well, in Bae’s memories, but now she could take a proper look at him, his greeny-gold skin still slightly smeared with white make-up and limp, damp hair. He had a kind face, Belle thought, with too many worry lines in it. She had been around her own kind long enough not to be alarmed by strange appearances; Rum’s unusual colouring was just another part of him, like his gifts. She hadn’t been able to get a proper handle on them from Bae’s thoughts, but she knew that they involved gold.

As soon as it was safe to do so, Belle lowered the ramp and Jean rushed up it, giving Bae a smile and a quick hello before concentrating her power on levitating the worn-out stretcher and getting Rum down to the medical room.

“It’s ok,” Belle said, putting out a hand to hold Bae back as he tried to rush after her. “This is Jean, she’s a doctor, she’ll take care of your dad. You can see him in a minute, I promise.”

_Belle?_

It was the professor, her name acting as a mental door knock, requesting permission to set up a connection.

_We’re back, Prof. We’ve got the boy: Bae Gold, fourteen years old, blink teleporter, gift first manifested earlier today, also his father: Rum Gold, age unknown, mutant, gift unknown, physical manifest… He’s not good, Jean’s got him. Stab wound and hypothermia. Bae’s unharmed but very shaken._

_I’m on my way down_.

_Thank you. When we’re back on an even keel, I need to speak to you. There might be some complications on the horizon._

_I consider myself forewarned._

Belle turned to Bae. “It’s going to be all right. Come on, come down, out of the plane.”

A little reluctantly, Bae followed Belle down the ramp into the jet hangar. Storm had already disembarked and was looking over the plane as she always did after a flight, and Bae looked around the room in awe. Belle smiled.

“I remember the first time I saw it, too,” she said. “This isn’t the most impressive part, trust me.”

The hangar doors opened with a soft hiss, and Belle heard the professor’s voice before she saw him enter.

“Welcome back Belle, Storm. And you must be Bae. Welcome. My name is Professor Charles Xavier.”

“The professor runs the institute,” Belle said. “He’ll tell you how things work around here. He’s a telepath, like me. He was the one who heard your call for help.”

Bae nodded and went over to the professor, shaking the older man’s hand, and they went out of the hangar together. Belle gave a satisfied sigh, watching them leave before going over to help Storm.

“You think he’ll be ok?” her friend asked.

“Bae or Rum?” Belle asked. “Yes, I think they’ll both be fine. Someone needs to be with Rum when he wakes up; I don’t think we’ll have Logan-levels of violence, but he was in full-on Papa Bear mode when he went down, and you know what they say about parents protecting their kids.” For a moment, Belle was saddened as she thought of her own father, but she pushed the thoughts aside, glad that Bae had a parent who was willing to lay down life and limb for him.

“Ok, we’re done,” Storm said presently. “Are you all right, Belle? After going to Storybrooke… you look pensive.”

Belle shook her head. “It’s not going back to Storybrooke, it’s something I saw in Bae’s mind… I need to speak to the professor about it first, I think.”

Storm shrugged. “Ok. If you need to talk about anything, you know Ruby and I are always here.”

“Thanks, Storm.”

The two women left the hangar to go and change, each still wrapped up in her own thoughts of the evening’s events.

“So… Do you think any wars have broken out in the kitchen yet?” Belle asked, pointedly changing the subject as she pulled her regular day clothes out of her locker, trying to put the drama to the back of her mind. “With only Marco supervising, I’m fearing food fights and flying spaghetti.”

“Not spaghetti,” Storm said. “Marco would never let anyone waste his spaghetti, it’s tantamount to a felony.”

Marco, as affable and mild-mannered as he usually was, had been known to show some stereotypical Italian fire on occasion. Usually the younger ones did not give him too much trouble in and of himself, but the slightly older students were prone to infighting as any young people were, and the older man sometimes got caught in the crossfire. Idly, Belle wondered just how old Marco was. He had not been a young man when she had first come to the Institute, so many years ago now, but he had already been thought of a constant fixture even then. Whatever happened in the outside world, you could always count on Marco to still be here, still holding the fort at home dispensing good food and good advice to anyone that needed it, bringing small hand-made presents to life to help their youngest students through their first few days in a new place. For Belle, imagining the place without Marco was impossible.

“I think we’d better go and see the damage nonetheless,” she said to Storm. Had they not made their unexpected trip to Maine, they would have been on kitchen duty, and it felt wrong to leave Marco completely in the lurch.

“I’m sure nothing’s happened.” Storm put her uniform away and followed Belle out of the room. “Mind you, we’re pretty soundproof down here. World War Three could have broken out and we wouldn’t notice. At any rate, I’ll go up, you go to Jean. You said yourself someone needs to be with them when Rum wakes up and I suggest someone with a calming influence.”

Belle nodded her acquiescence and peeled off towards the medical room. Jean was working in silence as she entered, patching up the wound in Rum’s side. He was already hooked up to a drip, and most of him was covered in shock blankets, warming him up.

“He’ll be all right,” Jean said without looking up. “It’s a nasty knife, I’ll give you that. Even more gruesome with the guy’s hand still attached.”

Belle looked over in the direction Jean indicated and shuddered at the horrible sight, before returning her attention to the man on the op table in front of her. She couldn’t get a read on his mind whilst he was unconscious, and it felt wrong to probe too far without his knowledge or consent.

She wondered what he was going to be like when he woke.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

The kitchen was in a state of comparative calm when Storm entered; there were no signs of flying food, even if the volume level was rather remarkable. Marco, standing at the stove stirring a pot of spaghetti, looked up as Storm came in and smiled, making a chattering motion with his hand. To all intents and purposes it looked like Emma and Regina were arguing again, and everyone else around the table was taking sides. Storm rolled her eyes; she didn’t know what it was about those two but they just rubbed each other up the wrong way ninety per cent of the time. Across the room, watching the dispute with an air of perplexity, Rogue shrugged. At dinner time, the kitchen worked on a sliding scale by age; it was the easiest way to get everyone fed and watered. The youngest kids ate first, followed by the next age group, up until the seventeen to eighteen year olds who ate last with the adults, with each group responsible for helping with the dishes whilst Marco cooked on an industrial scale. The older students were often drafted in on kitchen duty to help with cooking, cleaning up and supervising. Not only did it foster a sense of responsibility in the students, it also gave them a sense of pride to know that they were helping, and it developed their social skills; as well as keeping the school running smoothly. Marco had obviously seconded Rogue’s help to keep the slightly younger teens under control.

“What chaos have I walked into?” Storm asked. At her voice, the students around the table all started talking at once and by the time they finally quietened, she was no better off than she had been before.

“Regina started it,” Emma muttered darkly before taking a bite of pizza and continuing to scowl. Storm gave a heavy sigh.

“Why am I not surprised to hear that?”

“I did not!” Regina exclaimed, and the entire cycle began again.

For all their differences, the two girls were remarkably similar. Both were runaways and both had arrived at the school at roughly the same time. Regina was a couple of years older, but Emma had been surviving on her own for longer and sadly it had made her wise and hardened beyond her fourteen years. Both were prickly, reticent with their emotions, and yet passionate when they disagreed – which was often.

And yet… Storm had been there during those first few months when Regina had woken up screaming with nightmares, and Emma had been the one to sit up with her in the TV room at all hours because she was afraid to go back to sleep.

Her thoughts were dragged back to the present when she saw Regina bring one hand to her mouth and yank off the latex glove she was wearing.

“Regina, no!” she shouted, but it was too late: the girl had reached across the table and grabbed the slice of pizza that Emma was just picking up. Immediately, thick, furry black mould began to grow over the food and Emma dropped the slice with a screech of disgust.

“Regina.”

Rogue’s voice was calm, and not at all authoritative, but it held a tone of something akin to disappointment. Regina and Rogue were kindred spirits in a way; their powers similar: at opposite ends of the spectrum, but both were gifts that could be incredibly debilitating with very few advantages over the drawbacks. Whilst Rogue’s affected people, Regina’s affected foodstuffs, turning anything she touched rotten and inedible. During her brief time at the school, the older girl had become something of a mentor to sixteen-year-old Regina, and it had been very rewarding to see the shy and fearful runaway of nine months ago grow into someone who felt useful and needed by a peer. She caught Regina’s mutinous gaze and nodded in the direction of the kitchen door, and the two girls left together as Emma, still scowling, grabbed the final slice of pizza from the plate in the middle of the table.

“I’m not even going to ask what just happened,” Storm said flatly. “But Emma, you’re on washing up duty.”

The younger girl was evidently unimpressed by this, but it was well-known that within the kitchen at least, Storm’s Word Was Final, and there would be no use in trying to appeal to Marco’s better nature for a reprieve. Storm sighed and sat down in Regina’s vacated spot at the table, next to Theresa, and she accepted the cup of coffee that Marco handed to her gratefully. The trouble with Regina and Emma was that they were both so _stubborn_. Neither of them was ever willing to give an inch.

“So…” Theresa began eagerly. “Where did you and Belle go tonight? We all saw the jet leave and come back. You couldn’t have gone very far.”

“We were in Maine,” Storm said levelly. “We got what we went for.”

Until everything was on an even keel, she wouldn’t share the details, and the kids knew that, however much they might try to get more juicy gossip out of her. Storm wondered what was happening in the other parts of the mansion – how Bae and the professor were getting on, and whether Jean had managed to put Rum back together again down in the medical room. She hoped that Belle would be able to calm him down if needs be; by all accounts it had been a very traumatic time for both father and son, and Rum would need a while to recover.

The students finished their meal and began to clear up around her by mutual consent, with Emma going over to the sink to wash up what needed to be washed up and stack the dishwasher with the rest of the plates. Storm would be ever grateful for the little things that made life easier, and an industrial capacity dishwasher was one of them.

It was at that point that the door opened and Bae poked his head around it nervously.

“Come in, come in,” Marco said, waving him over to the table. “Come and sit down, you must be starving.”

Bae shook his head. “No, I’m not really hungry…” He came over to the table nonetheless, taking the seat that Marco indicated and looking around the room.

“Ah, you will not be saying that when you see the spaghetti,” Marco said sagely.

“He’s right,” Emma piped up from the sink. “Marco’s spaghetti is legendary.” She had finished her dishes and was leaning back against the sink, watching Bae closely. Storm could tell that she was trying to get a read on him, but unlike Belle, Emma’s gift was still in need of fine tuning; she could not pick up thoughts as easily.

Bae, for his part, watched her back, and the two remained in a silent sort-of staring contest for a minute or so before Emma broke the silence.

“Hi. I’m Emma.”

“Bae.”

“Pleased to meet you, Bae. So… what do you do?”

“Huh?”

“Your superpower.” Emma pulled herself up to sit on the counter, swinging her legs. Marco sighed and rolled his eyes when he saw her, but did not admonish her this once and focussed on making the meal, cracking eggs into the pot of spaghetti. The other older students and staff would be coming in soon, and it was an unusual evening, after all.

“I can tell when anyone is lying,” Emma added, “so don’t try to pull the wool over my eyes.”

“I, erm, teleport,” Bae said. He sounded unsure of himself, and Storm couldn’t blame him, having only come into his power a few hours ago.

Emma grinned. “Awesome!”

“Here we are,” Marco said, ladling up a steaming bowl of spaghetti carbonara and putting it in front of Bae. “Now tell me that you aren’t hungry.”

Bae dutifully took up his fork and began picking at the meal, and Storm felt her own stomach growl in jealousy at the sight.

Marco laughed. “Yours is coming, Miss Munro, yours is coming.”

They could only have been eating for a couple of minutes when the kitchen door opened again and Jean appeared in the frame. Storm raised one eyebrow at her to question, but the red-head was smiling warmly as she addressed their newest addition.

“Bae, when you’re done eating, your dad’s awake.”

Bae instantly set down his spoon and fork, jumping up from the table before Marco could protest at his spaghetti being abandoned.

“Is he ok?”

Jean nodded. “He’s going to be fine.”

X

There was a very handsome man behind that veneer of worry and hardship, Belle thought as she watched Rum sleep on. He had obviously suffered a lot in his lifetime; Jean’s scans and x-rays showed many old wounds, some of which had healed better than others, and Belle looked down at his right foot. Covered with the sheets as it was she could not see the extensive scarring there, but she knew it existed, and she wondered just what had happened to him to cause such terrible damage.

She stroked her thumb over his fingers where she was holding his hand, trying to send him calm, soothing thoughts through the medium of touch. His skin was rough under her fingertips, its texture unusual but not at all unpleasant, and although long and claw-like, his nails were not too sharp. He was still out for the count, but she was picking up snatches of thoughts as he gradually fought his way back towards consciousness, from the depths of sedation to a dreaming state. The impressions she was picking up were mostly fearful ones, and whilst it saddened her to know that this man had been so afraid, she had nothing but admiration for his bravery in the face of a threat to his son.

Suddenly, conscious thought returned to him in a panicked rush, and his eyes shot open, revealing dark, yellowy-grey irises and pupils dark with terror.

“Hey, it’s ok, you’re safe,” Belle reassured him, but he paid her no heed, yanking away from her touch and looking around the medical room in a frenzy, his breathing going from a veritable nought to sixty within a few seconds. The monitors that Jean had hooked him up to began screeching in alarm at the sudden change in his state, and the doctor herself came rushing over from where she had been typing up a report in the corner.

“Where’s Bae?” His voice was low, barely more than a growl, and it contained all the menace of a blockbuster villain. “Where is my son? What have you done with him?”

“Sh, sh, it’s all right,” Belle said, holding up her hands, partially in a gesture of surrender and goodwill, and partially in order to try and get a hold of his head to force a connection and some calming thoughts on him. She didn’t want to resort to that, but she would do if necessary. “Bae is fine, he’s safe. Please calm down, you’ve been badly injured and you’re only going to hurt yourself further.”

She tried to push him back down against the pillows but despite his blood loss and trauma, he was still comparatively strong and he fought her off.

“Where is he? What have you done to him? WHERE HAVE YOU TAKEN MY SON?”

“He’s safe, he’s upstairs with the professor, you’re safe here…”

Out of the corner of her eye, Belle saw a capped syringe fly across the room into Jean’s hand, and she caught the other woman’s eye as she prepped it, shaking her head.

_Don’t sedate him, it’ll make him worse when he comes round second time._

Jean understood the thought and backed away, obviously not happy at the position that Belle had put herself in, dealing with a very scared and now rather violent man, and keeping the syringe ready.

“Bae is safe. You’re safe. You’re amongst friends.”

She finally managed to get a touch on his temple and pushed her thoughts into his mind.

_We’re mutants like you, we’re here to help, I promise. Please try to calm yourself, and let me help you._

Rum stopped fighting with that thought, looking at her with dark eyes full of hurt and confusion. Belle smiled encouragingly.

_My name is Belle, I’m a telepath. We heard your son’s call for help and came to find you before anyone else could. Take some breaths, with me. In… And out…._

Rum nodded slowly, and gradually his breathing and heart rate returned to more manageable levels and the machines stopped having palpitations. Jean put down her syringe of sedative, exchanging another wary glance with Belle.

_It’s ok,_ she pushed out to the red-head. _I’ve got this_.

“Where am I?” Rum asked. “And where’s Bae?”

“You’re in New York, in Xavier’s Institute for Gifted Youngsters. It’s a safehouse for mutants. I believe from what Bae’s said that Diana Lucas told you about us.”

The corner of Gold’s mouth twitched up in the vaguest semblance of a smile.

“Her granddaughter, Ruby, lives here,” Belle added, and Gold nodded his acquiescence.

“Where’s Bae?” he repeated. “Please, I need to know my boy’s all right. Is he hurt?”

Belle focussed her thoughts on Bae, combing through her memories of the boy and projecting the snapshots into Rum’s mind. It was harder with pictures than with words, because it was so easy for memory to warp a true vision, but she hoped that it would be enough to reassure him that his son was all right. She showed him Bae in the jet, wrapped up in shock blankets, and she showed him Bae meeting with the professor. Eventually, Rum gave a nod of satisfaction.

“He’s absolutely fine,” Belle said. _Jean, can you get Bae please? He’s probably in the kitchen with Storm and Marco._ “You’ll see him in a minute. Now, please try to rest. You’ve been hurt badly.”

Rum obeyed, but it was clear that he would not be completely satisfied until he had seen Bae, and Belle could understand his panic, especially given what they had just gone through. Rum had no memory of the flight back to the institute; he had gone straight from losing consciousness after a fight with a couple of bounty hunters to waking up in a medical facility that might well have been the one his pursuers had wanted to take him to.

Jean had since left the room to go and get Bae, and Belle winced in sympathy with Rum as she felt, through their mental connection, a jolt of pain rush through him from the wound in his side.

“When Jean’s back she’ll give you some painkillers,” Belle said. “I’m afraid I can’t do anything to help.”

“It’s ok.” Rum grimaced as he shifted his weight. “Just… don’t go. Please. I don’t want to be alone.”

“Of course. I’ll stay for as long as you need me.”

“Thank you.”

Belle resumed her position by his bed, and out of habit, she placed her hand on the mattress, just beside his, just in case he wanted to grab it. Having spent so long bereft of human touch and craving it more than anything else in the world except perhaps her freedom, Belle knew only too well the comfort that having a hand to hold, something solid and warm to cling to, brought, and it was something that she had striven to do for others throughout her adult life. She would never deny someone a hand to hold if they wanted it.

“You’re incredibly brave,” she murmured, stroking his damp hair out of his face where it had fallen into his eyes during his frenzied panic. “What you did for Bae back there.”

Rum gave a snort of self-deprecating laughter.

“I’m hardly brave,” he said. “Spending my days shut up in my home, refusing entry to man or beast, hiding away from everyone.”

“I don’t think it’s as simple as that,” Belle said. “For some people, just having the courage to get out of bed and face the day is an achievement.”

There were so many whom they did not rescue, who succumbed to the pressures and the prejudices of the world before they had chance to learn that there was more out there, that their lives did not have to be dictated by their mutations.

“Bravery depends on context a lot of the time,” she continued, shaking the melancholy thoughts out of her head.  “You risked your own life to protect your son.”

“That’s not bravery, that’s being a dad,” Rum muttered. “It comes with the territory.”

“You’d be surprised how many fathers would not make that choice,” Belle said.

Rum did not respond, and simply stayed staring up at the white ceiling tiles. After about a minute or so of silence, Belle felt his hand move over the mattress and rest lightly on hers.

“Thank you for being here,” he said. “Thank you for saving us, as well. I feel that deserves more thanks. But thank you for staying.”

There was something so heartfelt in his gratitude, for something so simple, that made Belle so terribly sad. He had gone through much hardship in his life that the smallest kindnesses meant so much to him. She was not reading his thoughts intentionally, but in the quiet with only the two of them, and with someone who thought as passionately as Rum did, it was hard to block them out as background noise. Having spent so long being downtrodden simply by dint of his genetics, he honestly did not believe himself to be worthy of the help and affection that he was receiving from Belle.

“Dad!”

Bae rushed into the room, Jean following at a more sedate pace, and Rum let go of Belle’s hand to let him accept Bae’s hug, putting his arms around his son as the boy practically threw himself onto the narrow bed.

“Careful son, not too tight, I ache all over…”

Bae buried his face in his father’s neck.

“I thought I’d lost you,” he mumbled, the words somewhat muffled but the depth of emotion behind them clear as day. “I thought you were dead.”

Rum shook his head. “Not today, Bae.”

Belle smiled and moved away to give the little family some peace and privacy, and she left the medical room in search of some dinner. Hopefully Marco had cooked enough spaghetti. Then again, Marco had a tendency to make spaghetti by the boatload. Just as she passed through the door, she took a glance back over her shoulder at Rum and Bae, and she caught a snatch of their thoughts. They were still nervous and unsure, but ultimately, they were happy here, and Belle hoped that they would continue to be so.

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

**Three years ago…**

The thought was so sharp and clear that Belle dropped the book she was holding, not even noticing when all one-thousand and eighty pages of it, complete with heavy leather binding, landed on her toes. It was a long time since she had heard anything so clearly. Over the years, the thoughts of everyone around her had been reduced to background noise, to the extent that sometimes when she was alone with no-one else’s mind in the vicinity, she couldn’t sleep for the quiet. But this thought, this single sentence that shot into her brain and forced her to listen to it… This was different. She recognised the sensation from her sessions with the professor when he had been teaching her to control and live with her power. Those lessons were over four years ago now, but Belle still remembered them as if they were yesterday. A thought with that kind of power behind it could only have come from a fellow telepath who was projecting – and from the content of the thought, they were probably projecting unconsciously.

_Stop lying! Stop lying to me!_

The library was quiet, it was almost closing time – in fact the fifteen minute closure warning had already been announced – and Belle wondered where this desperate thought had come from. The mental voice was female and she sounded quite young.

Gradually becoming aware of the pain in her foot from the weight of the tome on it, Belle picked up the book and shelved it before leaving her post and making her way quietly through the aisles, trying to catch the voice again and lock onto it, like the professor had taught her how to do. She was struck with a sudden nostalgia for the Institute; the six years that she had spent there honing her powers and catching up with her studies had been, without a doubt, the best of her life, but she had felt it was time to branch out on her own. It had been high time for an adventure, after so long spent in first one place and then another, and since she was free to leave, she had wanted to take advantage of that fact. All the same, she had never met anyone as kind and welcoming as the people she knew, however much she might keep the thought to herself, as her family. It was not as if she had cut off her ties with them completely – Ruby and Storm had both stayed on at the school to teach whilst Belle had moved out to go to college and eventually get a job in the library, and she kept in regular contact with her friends.

A tinny voice came over the PA system.

_“Ladies and gentleman, the library is now closed. Please make your way to the exits.”_

The strong mental voice came again, pressing through the atmosphere, and Belle finally got a lock on it.

_Safe at last._

It was coming from the back of the children’s section, which had already been closed off from the rest of the library, and Belle made her way through to it, unlocking the little gate and stepping through.

_No! Oh no, someone’s coming!_

Belle heard someone scrambling behind the shelves, and she peered around the end of the stacks to see a young blonde girl halfway up a shelving unit, caught red-handed in the middle of climbing up to evade her.

“Hello,” Belle said. The girl didn’t speak, just continuing to stare at her, wide-eyed and unblinking like a deer in the headlights. “Were you planning on camping out here?”

There was still no response, and all she was getting from the girl’s mental voice was a tidal wave of blind panic.

“What’s your name?” she asked. “Do your parents know that you’re here?”

The word ‘parents’ had the trigger effect, and the girl shook her head.

“Don’t make me go back,” she said. “Please.”

Belle shrugged. “I’m not going to make you go anywhere,” she said, grabbing one of the little chairs from the children’s story time area and sitting down on it. The girl, sensing that Belle was not going to admonish her, carefully made her way back to ground level. Belle could see that she had a bulging backpack, and she wouldn’t have been at all surprised if it contained all her worldly possessions.

“My parents… My foster parents… They think I’m crazy.”

Belle nodded.

“Because you can hear things in your head that no-one else can?” she suggested.

The girl nodded slowly. “Yeah. Sometimes. Not much. But I know when they’re lying to me…”

Low-level telepathy and polygraphy, Belle thought to herself, but it was the professor’s voice that she heard in her head saying it.

“I know that feeling,” Belle said.

“You’re… like me?” the girl asked.

Belle nodded, and carefully pushed a thought out towards the girl.

_My name’s Belle_ , she projected simply.

_Mine’s Emma_.

“Hello Emma,” Belle said aloud.

Emma smiled, then her face fell.

“Please don’t make me go back,” she said. “Please.”

Belle shook her head.

“I’m not going to,” she said. “I promise.”

Emma was looking at her closely, her brow furrowed, and Belle knew that she was testing the veracity of her words, and finally she gave a slow nod, satisfied that the adult was not going to go back on her word.

“Belle?”

It was Astrid, the other librarian, calling to her from the main library. Emma’s thoughts immediately became panicked, and Belle pressed a finger to her lips before going back to the gate to meet her colleague.

“I’m leaving, you’re ok to lock up, right?”

Belle nodded and Astrid made to leave the building, but paused. “What are you doing in the children’s library?” she asked.

“Just looking for something,” Belle lied glibly. “I’ll lock up and see you tomorrow.”

“Ok.”

With Astrid gone and the library empty, Belle returned to Emma, who had since pulled a squashy blanket out of her backpack and was sitting on the floor wrapped up in it.

“Okay, we’re alone. So…” She paused, trying to formulate some kind of plan in her mind. “What are we going to do about you, then? I’ll be the last person to take you back to your foster family, but you can’t live in the library.”

“I can try,” Emma muttered. Belle just gave a soft laugh at the girl’s indignant tone.

“You really can’t, and you know that. You’re too young to have to live this kind of life.”

“I’m eleven!”

“I’ll put it this way – no-one should have to live this kind of life, especially not an eleven-year-old.” For a minute, Belle considered taking Emma home with her, but her apartment was barely big enough for her, let alone a child, and she really didn’t have the first clue about looking after children. Besides, it would look a little odd, the single lady who kept herself to herself suddenly coming home with a child in tow. “You ought to be in school, not camping in libraries.”

“I can learn from the books in the library,” Emma suggested feebly. “I don’t need school, honestly.”

“Emma, I completely appreciate what you’re going through,” Belle said, trying to reason with the girl, “but you can’t stay here.”

“So what did you do? When you found out you were… weird.”

“We’re not weird,” Belle said sternly. “Never think that. We’re gifted.”

“More like a curse,” Emma muttered.

Belle fell into silence, because Emma’s point was a poignant one. When Belle had found out about her gift, she’d had no choice in the matter, she’d just been shipped off to the asylum, until she’d managed to escape and get to the…

“I know where you can go,” Belle said suddenly. “I know a place where you’ll fit right in. I spent six years there, the best six years of my life. Do you trust me?”

Emma nodded. “Yes. You’re the only one who hasn’t lied to me about this… strangeness.” She tapped her temple to indicate her gift.

“There’s a school about three hour’s train ride from here,” Belle said. “A school for gifted youngsters – like you, and me when I was younger. They’re all mutants there, like us. You’ll be safe there, and happy, I think. And it’s much better than sleeping in the library.”

Emma gave another slow nod, and gradually a smile began to spread over her face. Her thoughts were much calmer now, and there was a distinct hint of optimism in her head now that this new lease of life had been presented to her.

“So, how do we get there?” she asked, picking up her back pack and shoving the blanket back into it, making ready to go. Belle followed her out of the stacks and picked up her own belongings, setting the rest of the library to rights and locking up before ushering Emma out of the building and setting the alarm. She didn’t know why they had a burglar alarm, really, the library was not all that big a building and was not exactly home to several limited first editions, and she highly doubted that the petty cash they took from overdue fines would be that much of an incentive to break in.

“Come with me. We’ll get the train.”

For a moment, Belle wondered if two days down the line she would find herself being arrested for kidnap; walking along with a child who had run away from home and taking her on trains across the state, but then she thought of the impressions she had received from Emma’s mind and panicked thoughts, and she came to the sad conclusion that Emma would probably not be missed from the home that she had fled. Still, once they were at the school, things would fall into place. At least, she hoped they would. The more she thought about the school, especially now that she knew she was going to be returning to it, the more Belle realised just how much she had missed it over these past few years whilst she had been away, and the thought of yet another flying visit was not so much of a welcome one. Perhaps this would be the event that finally made her sever ties with the place completely. But then again, what if she came across another child like Emma a few months down the line?

The short walk to the train station took place in comparative silence, with each of them lost in their own thoughts. No-one that they passed paid them any mind; there were no traces of suspicion in the background thoughts of the people they passed. They were just a child and an adult who knew each other and were going on a trip together. Emma hung back nervously as Belle bought the tickets, and she couldn’t blame the girl really. Still, Emma’s thoughts, as clear as they were coming from a fellow telepath, showed that she genuinely trusted Belle to have her best interests at heart, and that gave Belle the hope and courage that she needed to continue. If Emma, who had been through so much in her young life so far – it was obvious from her subconscious thoughts, even if Belle had not pried too far into her mind – still had the capacity to trust someone she had never met before, and still had the ability to hope for the best, then all was not lost, and the professor and the other staff at the school stood a greater chance of being able to help her grow into an accomplished young woman – just as they had helped Belle.

There was a thirty-minute wait for the next train so Belle got them some food (she didn’t think that Emma’s stash of Apollo bars, gained by less than legal means, were quite nutritious enough to be going on with) and they sat on the platform to eat.

“Do you need to let them know that you’re coming?” Emma asked between bites of sandwich. She was resting her feet on her backpack, and she seemed more content now than she had done since Belle had first come across her.

Her words made sense, it would be prudent to forewarn the school of her arrival with someone extra in tow, so that they could make the necessary arrangements for another long term visitor. Belle fished around in her bag for her phone and dialled Ruby’s number. It took her friend a long time to answer and when she did, she was obviously on speakerphone.

“Ruby Lucas, domestic goddess up to her elbows in flour because Marco’s got the evening off, how may I help?”

“It’s me, Ruby.”

“I know it’s you, Belle. What’s up?”

“I’m coming back to the house tonight.”

“Ok, short notice much? Not that we’re not going to be thrilled to see you. I need all the help I can get cleaning up this mess I’ve managed to make. Who knew that flour went so far when you dropped it?”

“No, it’s not a social call. Well, not really. I’m bringing someone.”

“You’ve got a boyfriend, Belle? Why was I not informed of this momentous development sooner?”

“I do not have a boyfriend, Ruby. She’s a prospective new student.”

“Ah. Right. Say no more.” Ruby’s demeanour immediately dropped from teasing into deadly seriousness and after some fumbling, the phone was evidently no longer on speaker. “How bad are we talking?” Ruby hissed.

“Not bad. Runaway with nowhere else to go.” It was at times like this that Belle wished her gift worked over the phone lines, so that she could inform Ruby of their situation more discreetly.

“Ok, say no more, we’ll see you when you get here. Will you want dinner? I mean, if Marco were here he’d be breaking out the emergency spaghetti already but he’s out of town tonight.”

“We’ll be fine, Ruby, we’ll sort things out when we arrive.”

“All right, we’ll see you in a few hours. How old is your runaway?”

“Eleven.” _But her mind is older than her years_ , Belle thought to herself sadly. Emma looked over at her sharply; she must have caught the thought. It was strange being back in the presence of another telepath, even a low-level one. Belle had become used to the idea of people hearing her background thoughts whilst she had been at the school, with both the professor and Jean around all the time picking up on what she was thinking, but she’d forgotten quite what it was like in the intervening years. She was so used to hearing other people’s thoughts that she never really considered the possibility of someone hearing her own.

“All right, I’ll warn the professor. See you soon, Belle.” There was a pause on the other end of the line. “I’ve missed you.”

Belle gave a wan smile. “I’ve missed you too, Ruby.”

They said their goodbyes and hung up just as the train was pulling into the station, and Emma jumped aboard, rushing to find a seat and save one for Belle. They did not talk for the first part of the journey, until they had left the town very firmly behind them and could no longer see its lights, then Belle heard Emma’s thoughts.

_Belle!_

She grimaced at the mental volume and Emma’s brow furrowed.

_Are you all right?_

_I’ll be fine,_ Belle replied, projecting the thought to Emma carefully. It was easy, when projecting out, to make the thought too general and end up putting it into the heads of everyone around her. _You don’t need to think that loudly to get my attention. I’ve had longer to fine tune my gift, it’s pretty sensitive, and I don’t have a dual gift like you._ Mutants who only had telepathy felt things much more acutely than those for whom telepathy was a secondary gift that came as a result of another mental power, such as polygraphy in Emma’s case, or telekinesis in Jean’s.

_Oh. Sorry._

_It’s ok, just… keep the volume down. At the moment you’re shouting in my head a bit._

They lapsed into silence for a bit, the thoughts reducing once more to background noise. When Emma next spoke, it was aloud.

“So, you hear _everything_? All the time?” she whispered. Belle nodded. “Isn’t it really noisy?”

Belle shrugged. “You learn to block it out. Then it’s more like tinnitus, really.”

Emma mused for a while. “Have you ever heard anything really disturbing? That’s what I’m worried about the most.”

Belle sighed, thinking back over the many weird and wonderful thoughts that she had heard during the fifteen years that had passed since her gift first made itself apparent.

“Sometimes. But you just have to remember that whilst thoughts can be scary, as long as they are not put into actions, then they cannot do any harm.”

“Have you ever thought about becoming a detective?” Emma asked. She was all seriousness, Belle could tell. “I think you and I could make a great team. I could tell when the suspects were lying and you could find out what the truth really was.”

Belle just smiled as Emma fell to thinking about a fantasy future for herself as a local sheriff, solving petty crimes and rescuing kittens from trees. She was glad that her hardships had not taken away the child’s innate sense of fun and imagination, and for the first time she was seeing her gift as something that could be used for good, rather than a curse to be borne throughout life. She didn’t think that Emma would have too many problems once she was firmly established in the safe and nurturing environment that the school had to offer.

The girl had fallen into a doze by the time they arrived at their destination, leaning against Belle’s shoulder, and as much as she was loathe to wake her in this moment of respite, she had to shake her for them to alight and make the short walk through the town to get to the school on the outskirts. It felt good to be returning, and in the back of Belle’s mind, the same feeling of nostalgia that she had whenever she made the journey up the driveway. Looking up at the huge façade, she immediately associated it with one word: home.

Beside her, Emma had stopped dead in her tracks as she looked up at the building.

“Woah.”

The doors opened and Ruby poked her head round them, grinning broadly from ear to ear.

“Impressive, isn’t it? Come on inside, we’ll get you settled in. Welcome to the Institute. My name’s Ruby.”

“Emma. Emma Swan.”

“Well then, Emma Swan, I can assure you that the place looks even better in daylight. Come in and meet everyone.”

Emma looked up at Belle for unspoken guidance, and Belle gave her an encouraging smile as Ruby waved her inside. Belle took a moment to gaze up at the house again, until a pointed thought from Ruby pervaded her mind.

_How long are you planning to stay?_

Belle did not reply. She didn’t know herself.

A large part of her was tempted to say: _forever_.

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

Jean had Rum on bed rest for a few days to recover from his injury and the hypothermia. Luckily the wound had been both clean and comparatively shallow, so she had not had any trouble sewing it back up.

As a result, he was blissfully unaware of the excitement that his and Bae's arrival had engendered until three days after the fact, when he was waiting for Jean to give him the go ahead to actually get up, and Emma decided that it was high time that she caught a glimpse of the man that everyone was talking about, and whom Bae had told her so much about. Emma liked Bae. She did not form friendships with people easily; being able to tell when people were not speaking the entire truth, but not being adept in her telepathic abilities enough to be able to tell what the truth was, made her naturally very wary of new people and it was rare for her to trust someone completely. Bae was an exception. The only other person that Emma could remember trusting so quickly was Belle, who had offered her a new start in life and truly meant it. Bae was different. He was exactly who he said he was.

In a way she was jealous of him. He had such a good relationship with his dad, one that Emma had never had with the birth parents she'd never met or any of the foster families and care homes that she'd been bounced around in until she finally came to the school. And whilst it was true that the school had provided her with a ready-made family, one that she wouldn't change for the world, she did still wonder what it would be like to know the unconditional love of a parent for a child. Bae always spoke of his father with such admiration and it was clear that Mr Gold was one of the biggest parts of his life. So, three days after Bae's arrival in the school, Emma found herself creeping around through the underground areas of the school, the ones that were generally off limits to the younger students. This was where the professor housed Cerebro, where the jet was kept, where the X-Men stored their uniforms and equipment, and where Jean's medical lab could be found. The medical room was the only place that the students ever frequented, and even then, they were usually supervised, Jean having taken them there herself because their ailment required something that could not be found in the usual medicine cabinet in the kitchen.

Still, Emma was a dab hand at sneaking around - it was not a skill that one really forgot - and she reached the medical room without incident, peering in around the door to check the coast was clear and finding Bae and his dad at the far end.

She hadn't really reckoned on his skin. Bae had told her that his dad was greeny-gold and scaly, and she had heard the adults throwing around the term _physical manifest_ , which she knew meant an unusual appearance due to mutant powers, but she hadn't really been prepared for seeing him in the flesh. She wasn't sure quite what she had been expecting, but Mr Gold was not it. Perhaps she'd been expecting someone who looked a lot more like an actual lizard, and she was surprised that he seemed so comparatively normal when set against her original expectations. If there was one thing that living with so many mutants, many of whom came and went, had taught her, it was that there was very little point in being unnerved by things that were not the norm, especially when it came to looks. Although Dr McCoy did not frequent the school very much and generally only came for flying visits to see the professor and catch up with Marco, Emma was always amused to see the new students' reactions to the blue furry man, and it was testament to the world that they lived in that the gasps were usually ones of impressed awe than fear.

For all his slightly crocodile-like appearance, Mr Gold's small smile was soft, rather than the hungry expression she associated with the reptiles, and he spoke animatedly with his hands as he talked to Bae, who was sitting cross legged on the end of his bed. Presently Bae glanced over at Emma, and waved her over.

"You know that Dr Grey's going to kill you if she finds you in here, right?" Bae said as Emma approached. For all he had only been here three days, Bae was already learning the ways of the school. Emma shrugged.

"I'll take the risk. I wanted to meet your dad before he gets mobbed by a bunch of curious students."

Mr Gold looked rather alarmed at that idea and Emma laughed. "It's ok, Mr Gold, we'll protect you."

"I'm seriously considering asking Jean to keep me here for another week," Gold muttered.

"Dad, yesterday you were complaining because you weren't allowed out of bed," Bae pointed out. "Despite the fact you'd just been stabbed."

"I know, but you feel pretty useless just lying here. I'm helpless enough as it is, I don't need any more reminders of that fact." He sounded angry at himself more than his surroundings, and Emma remembered Bae mentioning that his dad had rarely left the house before the unfortunate incident that had led them to the Institute.

"That reminds me, Dr Grey said that she was going to find you a crutch. We couldn't save your cane."

"Hmm." Mr Gold seemed pensive, and he rubbed the third finger of his left hand; even against his unusual skin Emma could see that he was missing a wedding ring there. She decided it would be best to change the subject.

"So, Bae, aren't you going to introduce me to your dad? After I snuck around past all the adults to get in here and everything?"

"Oh, yeah, sorry. I kind of forgot you don't actually know each other. Dad, this is Emma. Emma, this is my dad."

"Pleased to meet you, Emma." Mr Gold shook her hand. "So… How long have you been here now?"

"Three years," Emma said. "Belle found me and brought me here. Just like she did for you."

"I like Belle," Bae said conversationally. "I think Dad does too."

Mr Gold gave a spluttering cough and Bae just gave him an amused look.

"She has been very kind," he finally managed once he had finished choking, and Bae and Emma exchanged a look. Emma's power wasn't great enough to be able to project into the minds of non-telepaths yet, but she could tell that she and Bae were both thinking exactly the same thing: Bae's dad had a little bit of a crush on Belle. Perhaps, once he was fully recovered, it was something that they could tease him about, but it felt unsporting to make fun of a man still on his sick bed.

The medical room doors opened and Emma dived under the bed with a squawk of alarm, cursing the fact that the sheets and blankets were all tucked in out of necessity and there were none hanging down to hide behind.

"Emma, I know you're there."

It was Belle's voice, and her words contained the healthy level of good-natured exasperation that Emma had come to expect whenever Belle found her bending the rules or just generally getting into some kind of trouble in some way or another, and Emma had long since learned that compliance was usually the best option in these cases. She scrabbled up from under the bed and gave Belle her best "sheepish" look.

"I wanted to meet Bae's dad!" she said by way of explanation of her presence.

"You'll meet him when he's allowed out of the medical room," Belle pointed out. "Just like everyone else."

"Yeah, but you know how everyone gets whenever the jet's been out to get someone; it's not like when I arrived via the front door, and people were pretty eager to meet me then," Emma said. She turned to Mr Gold. "It was really dramatic, seeing the plane go out. It comes up out of the basketball court like something out of a science fiction film and everything. Everyone can't wait to meet you."

"Oh God," Mr Gold said faintly. "I can wait to meet everyone, that's for sure."

"It'll be fine, Dad," Bae assured him. "Everyone's really friendly."

"Hmm." Mr Gold didn't sound entirely convinced, and Emma decided once more that it was time to change the subject.

"So… what can you actually do, Mr Gold?" she asked. "I overheard the professor saying that you were an alchemist, but in my experience that's old wizards with beards hunched over chemistry equipment trying to create the philosopher's stone. Do you really turn things into gold?"

Mr Gold smiled shyly. "Yes, I do."

"It's kind of limited though," Bae said, "so we're not all going to be super-rich any time soon. In case you got any ideas."

Emma bounced up and down excitedly. "Can you show me?"

Mr Gold's eyes glanced from Bae, to Belle, to Emma and then back again before he nodded slowly.

"All right. It takes a while." He looked over at Belle. "There's a twist of lint on your jumper, Belle. Could I use it, please?"

"Of course." Belle unpicked the lint from her fluffy sweater and handed it to him. It was only a tiny piece of wool, but all the same, Mr Gold began to twist it between his thumb and forefinger, aligning all the fibres. His eyes were closed and his brow furrowed in concentration, and for a long time, nothing happened. But then, between his rough fingertips, Emma saw the faintest glow of gold, which continued to spread slowly over the next few minutes, until finally he held up a thin, wafer-like piece of gold, created from just a twist of lint.

"And now I'm knackered," he muttered to himself, turning the little wafer over and examining it from all angles. "It's easier with my wheel." He looked up at Belle, and Emma could see the moment that inspiration passed across his face. Focussing hard on the little sheet of soft metal, it began to turn molten under the force of his concentration, the liquid gold dancing in the air and reforming into the thinnest and most delicate chain of impossibly tiny links that Emma had ever seen, with a little clasp at each end. Satisfied, Mr Gold held it out to Belle.

“If you'll have it."

Belle smiled. "Thank you, Rum." She held out her hand and he fastened the bracelet around her slim wrist, then drew back. If Emma didn't know better then she'd say that there was a distinct hint of a blush beneath his greenish scales, but she made no mention of it.

"That's so cool," she said instead, admiring Belle's new jewellery. "You might want to keep that to yourself, you'll be getting commissions."

Mr Gold chuckled. "I have a catalogue online. If they can afford it, then they're welcome."

Bae had mentioned that his dad made jewellery, so Emma supposed that for him this was normal. It was always fascinating, Emma thought, when she met new mutants with new and interesting powers for whom these things were second nature and normal, something that they could turn to their advantage. There was no denying that Mr Gold's power was a rather lucrative one. It was just a shame that the effect it had had on his appearance had caused him so much trouble over the years.  Presently Emma caught Belle's eye; the older woman was wearing that focussed expression that meant the background thought noise was particularly loud at that moment in time and she was having to concentrate hard on separating things out.

"Bae, I think Jean will be coming in a minute to give your dad a final check over, why don't you and Emma skedaddle for a while and come back later? I'll find you."

Emma tilted her head on one side. It was sort of the truth, but not the full truth, and Belle had some kind of other motive in getting rid of them and having Mr Gold to herself for a while. Given the probable barrage of thoughts she was being subjected to, and Mr Gold's worried expression, it was likely that she was going to try and calm him down, so Emma let it lie and left the room with Bae, the boy promising to come back later. Together, they made their way down the corridors towards the elevator up into the main house, and for a long time until they reached an empty study room, Bae was silent. Away from his dad, around whom he always strived to remain positive, Emma could tell that something was worrying him, even without picking up on any background thoughts like Belle would have done.

"What's up, Bae?" she asked gently.

"What's going to happen to Dad?" he asked. "I mean, this is a school, and that's ok for me because I'm a student. But what about Dad? He's not a teacher. What's going to happen to him once he's well enough to leave?"

He was scared of being separated from his dad, but more than that, he was worried about what his father would do without him once he had to return to the cruel world outside this haven. Emma pulled her chair closer to Bae's.

"The professor's not just going to kick him out," she said. "That goes against everything that we stand for. If there's no place for him at the moment then we'll create one for him, I'm sure of it. Marco's been here for years and he's not a teacher. Logan comes and goes a lot, but he's still always welcome here; this is his home even if he's not quite ready to admit he has one yet. Yeah, this is a school, that's what we present to the world because we need that cover to keep us safe. But this is more than a school, really. Ruby's gran told you to come here because it was a safe place. And it is. A safe place first and foremost."

Bae smiled. "Thanks, Emma."

She shrugged. "Don't mention it." She paused. She'd miss Bae if he and his dad were to leave, but she wasn't quite ready to let him know that yet.

X

Even once Bae and Emma were gone, Rum's thoughts were still in turmoil, and Belle patted his hand, trying to get him to come back to himself and calm down.

"Rum," she murmured. "Rum, please look at me. Everything's going to be all right."

Finally he looked at her, and the fear in his eyes made her heart melt.

"Is it really? I don't generally get on well with people, Belle. They are terrifying and _exhausting._ And although children are less terrifying and exhausting, I am more likely to terrify them."

"I can appreciate your anxiety," Belle said. "We'll make sure you don't end up like a zoo animal on display; it doesn't work like that, I promise. But you know how kids are, they're curious, especially when something's being kept from them by necessity. Look at Emma, prime example. As soon as you're out and about in the school and they see you all the time, they'll lose all interest. And you won't terrify them. If there are any kids in the world who will not be terrified of anyone with an unusual appearance then it's these ones. One of the professor's best friends is bright blue and covered in fur."

Rum gave a snort of weak laughter.

"I'm not going to tell you not to be afraid," Belle continued, but even now, she could tell that the background noise of his thoughts was quietening a little. "I won't say that there's no reason to be afraid, because having spent so much time in so many different minds, I know that's really not how fear works. But we'll be here to help make it a less terrifying experience."

"Thanks."

Belle leaned back against the mattress, admiring the dainty chain round her wrist. "Your gift is remarkable," she said. "Thank you for the demonstration."

"I've never thought of it as a gift," Rum said. He was still rubbing his thumb and index finger together, a nervous tic of his, Belle reasoned. "It's always been so intrinsically linked to this." He held up his hand, and the golden sheen of his scales sparkled softly in the medical room's bright light. "I've never separated the two aspects before, so I've always thought of it as a curse, rather than a gift."

Belle shrugged. "I suppose that I've been around these people long enough that my perception of things has changed. I think it's natural to think of your gift as a curse until you meet with other people who don't see it as a curse. It's hard to feel good in your own skin when all you can hear around you are insidious voices telling you how strange and different you are. You've just had far longer seeing yourself that way than the rest of us have. We're lucky; we were all found when we were young, when our minds were still flexible and perceptions could be changed more easily. It's harder to change something that you've been bearing - admirably - for so long." She paused, and smiled. "No-one here is going to blame you for the way that society has conditioned you to think of yourself."

Rum gave a small smile. "Thank you, Belle."

It was going to take time for Rum to feel comfortable here, and that was natural. For an introvert who spent most of his time with only his son as immediate company, it would be difficult and stressful to adjust; and she had warned the professor of that. The main feature of Rum's basement workshop, what little impression of it she had received from his thoughts, had been that it was a bolthole for him. Even though he was in an environment far different to the one that he had just left, an environment that was safe and accepting, he himself would not feel truly safe and relaxed without a place to retreat to. Belle was loath to call it hiding; the word held too many negative connotations of cowardice in Rum's mind, and it was not hiding in that sense. It was necessary self-care.

Belle had an idea.

"When you're on your feet again," she said, "remind me to show you my favourite place in the house."

Rum raised an eyebrow.

"Where is it?"

Belle grinned. "On the roof."

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

Regina was being followed. She’d been certain that she was being followed since before she’d split off from Rogue and the others to go to the archives, but now she was absolutely certain as she looked over her shoulder behind her and saw someone duck into the alleyway that ran down behind the library. Whoever they were, they were doing a good job of keeping themselves concealed, and now she knew that she was definitely their target. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Regina cursed the fact that her mutation wasn’t something useful like really powerful telepathy that could send someone into a coma, or the ability to shoot fireballs. No, her genetic weapon would only come in handy if her assailant happened to be eating a sandwich at the time they tried to kidnap her.

Regina remembered when her power – she still refused to call it a gift, despite what the professor said, because mutations like hers and Rogue’s, which were not only inconvenient but also downright dangerous, were not gifts in the slightest – had first manifested, and how it had led to the current quest that she was on. She had been watering the honeycrisp tree in the back garden, that her dad had planted to celebrate her birth, and she’d picked a ripe apple to eat. Before she could take the first bite, however, the thing had putrefied in front of her eyes, rotten to the core. Every single apple she’d pulled off the tree had done the same, and when her father had come outside on hearing her scream to find her sitting in the midst of a sea of rapidly decaying apples, he had gone bleach white and said two very simple words, ones that were not intended for Regina’s hearing.

_Not again_.

He’d told her that it would be ok, that they could work around it, that it need not be the end of the world and that above all, her mother never needed to know. But it was not to be. With a power so pervasive and strong, it was impossible to hide; the fact that she was now wearing gloves as a matter of course in the middle of summer was enough to betray her to her mother, and once Cora Mills’ suspicions were raised, it was only a matter of time before the truth came out. That was most definitely the worst day of Regina’s life, before and since. Aged thirteen and being told she was a freak, that she had to leave and never set foot in the house again lest she contaminate it with her defective genetics, and that one sentence, again not intended for her ears:

_Just like her sister, I thought we’d escaped it this time._

Regina had been an only child for as long as she could remember, but there was a hazy memory in the back of her mind of someone in the family with red hair, someone who was neither father nor mother. It was a memory that had always stuck with her, although she could not have been more than about two years old at the time, and in that moment it had made horrific sense.

The hazy redhead from her memories was her older sister, a sister whose existence in her parents’ lives had simply been erased as soon as her mutation had manifested. She’d been kicked out of the house and they had wiped the slate clean. Just as they were going to do to Regina. Ten years down the line would they be denying that Regina had existed, too? Ashamed of having two daughters who had both turned out to be mutants?

Regina had left. She’d had no choice, but a large part of her was pretty sure that she would not have remained even if she’d had one. What hurt most was leaving her father. She’d always been a daddy’s girl, ever since she was little, but on that day, in spite of the help and support he had shown her when her power had first come, he did nothing for her, just standing by and remaining silent whilst her mother ranted and raved and forced her out of the only home she had ever known, and it had killed her to see him so submissive and cowed in the face of her mother’s rage. He had stood by Regina’s side and comforted her, but only when her mother was not around to see. Regina wondered if they would have been all right, just the two of them, or if in the end her father’s prejudices would have come to the fore and she’d still be in the same position now. It was horrible to think so badly of a man whom she had admired so deeply throughout her childhood, but her last image of him was a bitter one; of a weak man, unwilling to fight for his daughter – unwilling to fight for both his daughters, because Regina held no illusions that this same scene had played out however many years previously with her sister.

The thought of her unknown redheaded sister brought her back to the present and the reason that she had come into town in the first place. Paying no more thought to her unusual shadow, Regina entered the library and made her way up to the top floor where the county archives were housed, checking out the volume that she needed from the librarian and going to find a quiet corner to work in. Ever since she’d left her parents’ house and ended up in the school – quite how she had fallen on her feet so well was a miracle for which Regina would be forever grateful – she had been a little obsessed with the idea of tracking down her sister. The professor, when she had questioned him on the subject, had given his full consent to her idea but had warned her that no-one from the Mills family matching the vague description had passed through the school at any point, and had warned her not to get her hopes up too high for a reunion. He had offered his assistance and connections for tracking her down, but Regina was content to go it alone.

She was not angling for a reunion, per se. She just wanted to find out as much as she could about a possible family that she had not known existed. Her sister must have been at least ten years older than her. Maybe Regina had nieces and nephews she didn’t know about?

She kept looking through the newspaper birth announcements for mentions of her parents. She’d already found her own, now it was just a case of painstakingly going through them until she found her sister.

A couple of times, Regina felt the distinct and indescribable feeling of being watched, to the extent where she turned around and scanned the small periodicals room carefully, but there was nobody there, only the librarian at the desk. Uneasy, she turned back to the papers. She had a chocolate bar in her bag (Marco never let anyone leave the school without making sure they had some food on them, just in case); there was always the vague chance that she could unwrap that with ungloved hands and force it down someone’s throat… It was a long shot, but it might work. All the same, she was getting to the stage of giving it up as a bad job; she hadn’t found anything of use and she was really feeling rather nervous now.

Then she saw it. Clear as daylight on the page in front of her. Eleven years prior to her own birth, her parents were announcing the birth of another child.

_Zelena, born to Henry and Cora Mills on 29_ _ th _ _April, weighing 8 lb 9 oz._

Regina just stared at the page in front of her. It was one thing to know, or at least to believe as fervently as she had done. It was quite another to have it confirmed so frankly and unceremoniously.

There was a sudden chill breeze in the archive room, and Regina shivered. All of the papers on the librarian’s desk were scattered, and the older woman swore as she ran around the room trying to pick them up. Regina was about to go and help her when she was stopped dead in her tracks by the appearance of another person in the booth beside her, someone wearing a long coat with a voluminous hood pulled down low, their face turned down, away from the light. On instinct, Regina shrank back against the table as much as she could, knowing that this mysterious stranger was the one who had been following her all day.

The figure leaned back carefully against the booth partition and watched the librarian from under their hood for a while. As soon as almost all of the papers were retrieved, they held out a hand and a tiny tornado formed above the palm before shooting across towards the desk, scattering everything to the four winds again and earning a particularly loud and fruity curse from the librarian.

When the older woman was occupied once more, the figure turned to Regina, looking up and turning back their hood so that their face was revealed. Regina had to bite her tongue to stop her making any kind of sound of alarm at the visage that was revealed: unnervingly pale blue eyes and even more unnervingly vivid green skin. If Regina hadn’t been sure that her stalker was a mutant before, then she was certain of it now. But within the dark folds of the hood, Regina could see that the stranger had reddy, gingery hair, and something in the very back of her furthest distant memories vaguely remembered seeing that shade of green on skin before.

The stranger smiled, a slightly vicious-looking smile that showed too many teeth.

“Hello, Sis,” she said softly.

“Zelena?” Regina managed to squeak.

Zelena nodded. “One and the same. Bet you thought you’d seen the last of me. Mind you, you were only tiny when I left. Just look at you now, all grown up and out in the big wide world on your own; no longer kept safely behind the glass in Xavier’s little mutant petting zoo. Oh yes, I’ve been keeping tabs on you for a while, Sis. I never stopped, not really. I was just waiting for the day that you manifested too, and you received the same treatment I did. But then when you did, the blasted professor found you before I could get to you.”

“What do you want?” Regina asked. Something told her that Zelena had not come to see her with benevolence and a tender sisterly reunion in mind. There was something gleeful in her voice when she spoke of Regina having been abandoned just as she had; there was no sympathy in her tone, only wicked pleasure.

“Family,” Zelena said simply. She sent another miniature tornado over her shoulder to coincide with the librarian picking up all the papers again. “You’ve been looking for me, I can see that, and now, you’ve found me. And I’ve found you.”

Regina was at a complete loss for words. Zelena gave another wicked smile and leaned back against the booth partition casually. “So, what were you intending to do once you’d found me, eh?” she asked.

“I… I don’t know,” Regina replied, shrinking back in her seat away from her sister. Was she even her sister? Regina had been around her fellow mutants long enough to know that if you could imagine a power, someone somewhere would probably have it, and who knew what those powers could be used for? “I just wanted to find my sister.”

“Ah, now, Sis, always pays to have a plan,” Zelena said, waggling her finger at Regina before sending another, slightly more powerful tornado towards the librarian, pulling the books out of the nearby shelves and sending them swirling into the stairwell so that the two mutants were left alone on the top floor of the library. “That’s got rid of her for a while, at least.” Zelena pulled up a chair and sat herself down beside Regina, pulling down her hood so that her face was revealed fully, emerald green skin framed with red hair, and pale blue eyes, eyes that in the back of her mind, Regina remembered seeing somewhere before. “So, how’s life in the zoo treating you, Little Sis?”

“What do you mean?” Regina asked.

“Xavier’s Institute. Or as we like to call it, the petting zoo.”

“It’s not a petting zoo,” Regina said. “It’s a school.”

“But what do they teach you there?” Zelena mused. She was obviously not expecting an answer as she pulled off her gloves and examined her scarlet fingernails, tutting over a chip in the polish.

“Just the regular stuff…”

“Exactly. They just keep you nice and tame and ready for life in the outside world,” Zelena said. “But the thing you have to remember, Regina, is that we shouldn’t have to be ready for the outside world. We’re not some killer whales being kept in captivity. Oh no. It’s the outside world that should be ready for us.”

Regina shook her head. “That’s a dangerous mindset.”

“According to whom?” Zelena asked. “Your professor?”

Regina could not reply, because yes, they were the professor’s words that she was parroting. But surely it was a case of common sense more than anything. No-one should be superior to their fellow man. That was the whole point – mutants and humans living together in harmony.

“We’re known as _homo superior_ for a reason,” Zelena said, her voice completely matter-of-fact. “We have gifts. We ought to be able to use them.”

Regina snorted. “My power is not a gift.”

“All power is a gift,” Zelena said. “The trick is knowing how to use it. And I’ll bet that no-one’s told you how to use yours.”

That was the moment when the proverbial lightbulb went on in Regina’s mind. It was true – no-one had ever told her how to use her power, only how to live with it. She had never been encouraged to embrace it completely because really, what was there to embrace? Regina could not see any situation in which this power could possibly be useful.

“I don’t think there’s any kind of use for mine,” Regina said. “I decay things. That’s all I do. There’s no practical application for that.”

Zelena raised an eyebrow. “Pestilence and famine. You’re two horsemen of the apocalypse rolled into one,” she pointed out. “You’ve got more power in those hands of yours than you could ever imagine, Little Sis.”

Regina looked down at her hands. The professor had always told her to think of her power as a gift, but she had never yet received any kind of proof that it could be. On the other hand, the horsemen of the apocalypse were generally, in most cultures, considered to be a Bad Thing, and she raised this point to her sister.

“Well you see, Sis, that depends entirely on whose perspective you see things from. Your power is a gift. You just have to know how to use it. And face it, Xavier’s not going to do that for you.”

Regina shook her head. “Why should I even trust you?”

“Because I can give you what you want,” Zelena said.

“That’s still not a reason to trust you.”

Zelena raised an eyebrow. “Well, I’m not exactly working for the Genetics Labs looking like this, am I? I can see that I’m not going to change your mind now, but you never know. If you think about it and decide that it’s high time you flexed your muscles, rather than being kept under Xavier’s dampeners all the time, then you know where to find me.”

She got up and left, and Regina stared after her for a long time after she had melted away into the shadows with another gust of strong wind around the library. By the time the librarian had returned, the green-skinned woman was long gone and Regina was once more alone on the floor. She thought about what her sister had said.

Common sense was of course telling her that it was a terrible idea, but something in the back of her mind would not let it go. The idea of having a power that could be used instead of simply suffered… It was intoxicating. She couldn’t believe that the professor would be keeping such things from her, it went against the entire nature of what he stood for… But then again, the idea of the school was safety first and foremost, keeping the students safe not only from the outside world, but also from each other. Perhaps that was part of it. Perhaps her power had always been seen as something for her to live with and bear for the rest of her life because should she learn how to weaponise it, she would put the school in jeopardy?

A small part of her mind thought about that night, a few days ago now, when Storm and Belle had rushed off in the jet and she and Emma had argued at dinner for what felt like the tenth time that week, and she had taken Emma’s pizza.

Everyone had been so disappointed in her having used her powers in an offensive way, but other more combative powers were encouraged. The older students had danger room training, showing them how to fight, for crying out loud, and yet when she showed a similar streak, she was chastised for it. She looked down at her hands once again, pondering. Could it be that she was more powerful than she had ever dared to imagine?

She shook her head, packing together her things and leaving the library. She had found her sister – or rather, her sister had found her – and that had been the point of the exercise. As she’d said to Zelena, there had never been any kind of deeper reasoning behind the quest, but now that she had been successful, it felt like she ought to do something with that knowledge.

Rogue was waiting for her outside the library, holding out a hotdog. It was a distinct advantage to the winter months that they could both wear gloves all the time and it didn’t look odd at all. They began the walk back towards the school in companionable silence, Regina lost in thought whilst she chewed. Leaving the Institute meant leaving the only home and stability that she had known since being forced to leave her parents, and she would be leaving her friends behind as well.

“Rogue,” she said presently as they were walking up the drive. “Do you ever think about your powers?”

“Frequently,” Rogue replied, “although I try not to. Why?”

“Well, I try not to think about mine, either. But I was just thinking… the Professor always says that they’re gifts, and we’re gifted. I mean, it’s in the title of the school. But you and me… Our powers aren’t really gifts. But what if they are, and it’s just that they haven’t taught us how to use them properly? I mean, why tell us it’s a gift if it’s really not?”

“Not sure I follow, Regina.”

The younger girl sighed as they came towards the main front doors. Inside the house she could hear the younger kids running around and getting ready for dinner.

“Never mind.”

X

No-one noticed any change in Regina’s behaviour that evening; the fact that neither she nor Emma started a heated discussion that might or might not have turned into an argument was simply taken as a blessing by the older staff and students present.

The next day being a Sunday, when the students were left to their own devices for the most part, it was dinner time before the alarm was raised. It was Emma who raised it, in fact, with a simple “where’s Regina?” that made everyone realise, with a sense of cold dread, that they had not seen the girl since the morning. Once Theresa had checked the room that she and Regina shared and reported that yes, it looked like Regina had done a bunk, then the mad panic had set in. Everyone knew what had happened the last time that a student had run away from the school – she had ended up in Magneto’s clutches and had almost died.

When the professor arrived back at the house that evening having spent the day paying a visit to Hank McCoy to look at the latter’s latest research project, he was alarmed to meet with such a cacophony of mental chaos from the moment that he and Scott pulled up at the mansion’s gates.

He pushed out towards Belle, knowing that she was the one that he would hear most clearly through the turmoil.

_Belle, what’s happening?_

There was no response over their telepathic link, but Belle herself appeared at the door only a moment later.

“It’s Regina,” she said, the first words out of her mouth, before the professor had even got out of the car and into his wheelchair. “She’s run away.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

Leaning heavily on Cerebro's console in front of him, the professor closed his eyes with a long sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose in a vain attempt to ward off the impending tension headache that was building in his temples. In all his years of searching for his fellow mutants, the only person he had never been able to find was Erik. And he knew about Erik; he was prepared for that. But now...

He replaced the helmet on his head and focussed his attention on the many voices that were now running through his head, their reach amplified now. He knew Regina's mental signature, she had been in the school for three years now and he was used to her thought patterns. She should be easy to find. He had been able to find Rogue easily enough when she had run after only a few days in the house; surely Regina could not be much harder. He pushed out from Cerebro, combing the surrounding area. She would be travelling on foot; unless she had been planning this flit for a long time. The students did not receive any kind of regular monetary allowance; although they were generally not denied money for personal purchases if they asked for it, they had to ask for it first, and none of the staff had taken any money out of the student allowance kitty for Regina recently, at least not an amount that would have caused alarm or been enough to pay for a train or bus ticket to anywhere particularly far away. Still, there was no sign of her in the surrounding area. He pushed out a little further, towards her parents’ house. Regina's relationship with her parents, well, her father, had always been a complicated one and although she had never expressed any desire to return to her home, he knew that she missed her dad. Even so, there was no sign of Regina anywhere around the Mills residence.

He was going to have to accept that the girl was nowhere to be found, which could mean one of two equally horrible options. Charles did not want to think of either of them.

The first was that Regina was dead. There was no way to track a mental signature if the person was not emitting one.

The second was that Erik had her, and had somehow used the same technology that shielded him from Charles' influence to shield Regina from it too.

Although an alive Regina was infinitely preferable to a dead one, the latter of the two options still threw up a whole great minefield of increasingly difficult questions. Had Erik taken her against her will, or had she actively sought him out? His former friend was no telepath, but Charles knew only too well his ability to get into people's heads. He pushed his thoughts forcibly away from Raven and swept the area again, looking for any possible trace of Regina. There was no sign of her in any of the places where he would have expected to find her.

Charles took off the helmet and sighed, unwilling to turn his chair around and leave the room to meet the anxious faces of the other staff, who were all expecting him to come out and give them a location and exact grid co-ordinates so that they could rush out and pick up their missing student - or at least talk to her. If she was adamant that she did not want to return then they could not force her to do so, they could only wish her well on her way and reassure her that the school's doors were always open for her if she chose to come back. How was he supposed to go out there and tell that that even with the most powerful mind in the building and the most advanced mental technology the CIA had ever developed at his disposal, he had not been able to find one sixteen year old girl who physically could not have gone far?

Charles thought of Erik and Raven again, and an idea struck him. He had never really looked for her, just as he had never really looked into her mind. But if he could find Raven, then he would find Erik - it was rare for them to be too far away from each other. And if he could narrow down Erik's location, then he could, hopefully, narrow down Regina's.

Having spent so much time not only staying out of Raven's head but actively avoiding her mental voice, she was never going to be the easiest person to find, but even so, she should not have been impossible to locate. Just like Regina, he could not find her anywhere. Removing the helmet once more, Charles pondered their situation. Regina was with Erik; that was now looking certain. With Erik, Raven and Regina all vanished from Cerebro's gaze, it would make sense that they were all together in the same place. The only trouble was that he did not have the faintest clue where that place might be.

He was going to have to tell the others, there was no putting it off any longer, and he turned his chair around to leave the room.

Everyone was looking at him expectantly, and he saw Belle look away; she'd already caught his thoughts.

"I can't find her," he said simply. "Wherever she is, she's being shielded."

"So we know who she's with," Logan said grimly. Charles nodded his agreement.

"There's no sign of Magneto, nor Mystique. I think it's safe to say that they have Regina with them."

There was silence for a long time, a painfully long time, with each of the gathered staff lost in their own thoughts. Why would Regina run away, and why would she run to Erik, of all people, especially after what he had done to Rogue - one of the few people she considered a friend - the previous year?

"Well there's only one way to go about this now," Logan said.

"And that is?" Scott asked, one eyebrow raised, and Charles wondered idly whether the two men would ever learn to trust each other.

"The old-fashioned way," Logan growled. "We'll have to track her scent. Ruby?"

Ruby nodded. "You go north-west, I'll go south-east."

If there were two people who could track through trace scent alone, then they were Logan and Ruby. Their heightened senses would hopefully be able to pick up her trail and give some idea of the direction she had gone in, even if not her ultimate location. Ruby's sense of smell was unparalleled and she had tracked down lost students on field trips more than once before now, as well as being able to sniff out children in hiding whom they had come to rescue.

The two trackers left the corridor and made their way back up into the main house to prepare for their trip; Scott followed them, offering to drive for Ruby, and the others left in dribs and drabs until it was only Belle and Charles left.

_Prof?_

Belle was requesting a connection.

_Go ahead, Belle._

_Did she jump or was she pushed, do you think?_ Belle asked him mentally. _Ruby would have noticed an intruder, she's been on alert ever since Mystique got in last year._

_Did she go to Erik willingly or did he take her,_ Charles agreed. _I don't know, Belle. You've spent more time around her recently, have you picked up on anything that might cause alarm bells to start ringing? Any kind of unhappy thoughts?_

Belle shook her head.

_She's seemed much the same as normal. Rogue said that she was distracted yesterday evening though, but wouldn't say what was wrong. She was probably contemplating the flit then. I know she's not really close to anyone, a bit of a loner, but why would she run_ now? _In midwinter?_

_I don't know, Belle. I just don't know._

She sighed, and the conversation switched to a verbal one now that she'd had time to process her thoughts.

"By all accounts it doesn't make sense. Regina's not the type to be so impulsive. Something drastic must have happened for this sudden change in her behaviour."

Charles stopped in his tracks.

"Her sister."

"What?" Belle turned to him, eyes wide. "I thought she was an only child?"

"So did she, until she manifested," Charles said. "It's a very long story, and one I think you should probably sit down for."

Together they made their way through the school towards Charles’ office.

"You know," he began, a tone of genuine lament in his voice, "there are times when I regret the decision to keep the school dry."

"Yeah, we could all use a couple of shots right now," Belle agreed, sitting down heavily in one of the chairs opposite the desk. "There's always the chance that Logan smuggled some beer in after his last excursion."

Charles gave a snort of laughter. "I think we need something stronger than beer to get through this." He shook his head. "First Rogue, now Regina... I sometimes wonder where I'm going wrong."

"Rogue wasn't your fault," Belle said firmly. "And Regina isn't your fault either. All you have to do is look at all the success stories that we've seen over the years. I don't think you're going wrong at all. But let's not think on that now. Tell me about Regina's phantom sister?"

Charles told the tale, and by the time he reached the end of it, Belle's eyes were wide.

"Sometimes it's hard to remain so optimistic about your fellow man when they pull stunts like that," she muttered. "What's the likelihood that Magneto has had Mystique act as the sister and prey on her that way?"

Charles shook his head.

"I don't know, because I don't know who else knows about Regina's desire to reunite with her lost family. He wouldn't know about it to abuse it in that way. Even you didn't know about it, and you see her almost every day."

Belle shook her head. "This just keeps getting stranger. I suppose... There's no real upside to this situation but at least if she's with Erik then she's safe from the hunters."

Charles did not need reminding of the hunters who had, however indirectly, brought Rum and Bae to their door.

"I wonder if Erik knows about them," he mused aloud. "He's been very quiet since Liberty Island, keeping low to the ground; he's still a wanted man. But this might be the thing to pull him out of hiding. Perhaps it's all part of a master plan. We'll never know. I haven't seen the inside of his head for a long time."

"We need to concentrate our energies on finding Regina," Belle said. "Could we do a wide sweep, check for anyone who might have seen her?"

The professor shook his head. "No, it would take too much energy to project the image into someone's mind then comb their memories remotely. It takes concentration to do it when you're standing right next to them." He looked up at Belle sharply. "Don't get any ideas, Belle. The last time you used Cerebro it almost gave you a stroke."

"I know." She hit the arm of her chair angrily. "I just want to do _something_ , you know?"

"I know. And for now, all we can do is maintain the calm here. The other students are shaken enough as it is. Until Ruby and Logan can help to pinpoint her, your and my place is here, with the rest of our charges."

Belle nodded reluctantly. "I know." She got up ready to leave. "Speaking of our other charges, I want to check up on Rum and Bae. So much drama so soon after their arrival can't be conducive to settling in."

"Of course, I'll be down myself in a moment."

Belle paused at the door.

"I hope we find her soon, Prof. Even if we can't get her to come home. I just want to know that she's safe."

"As do I, Belle. As do I."

X

Ruby stopped at the school gates, turning her face up to the wind, nostrils flaring.

"Everything ok, Ruby?" Scott asked. She shook her head.

"No. Something's missing. Well, sort of missing. It's still there, just fainter." She paused. "I've wondered what it is for years but I've never paid too much close attention to it. I smell _everything_ , so like Belle and hearing thoughts, I tune it out as background smell. It's an odd sort of scent signature and it's one I associate with Emma and Regina because I first noticed it just after they both arrived. I could never track it down to anything specific as a source so I didn't think it was anything suspicious. It was definitely a living something, but that was as far as I could tell. At any rate, it's gone now. A presence that's gone away, and gone away at the same time as Regina's gone away. This gets worse and worse." She sniffed the air again. "It's no good, the snow is muting everything. It's all I can smell right now, and it will have washed away any tracks. We'll just have to go in blindly."

"Any leads?" Logan asked, coming up behind them with Rogue beside him.

"She left on foot and headed away from town," Ruby said, pointing in the direction that Regina had taken. "But past that I can't tell, the weather's messing everything up even though Storm stopped the snow falling, the stuff on the ground is still giving me a problem." She made no mention of Rogue's presence; she was near enough an adult and able to do what she wanted, and Logan would keep her safe or die trying. Besides, if anyone was going to talk Regina round, it would be Rogue.

"We'd better get going, it's only going to get worse the longer we leave it," Logan pointed out. Ruby nodded her agreement and got into the passenger side of Scott's car, rolling down the window and focussing on separating out the smells of the car, of Scott, of the professor who had been sitting in her seat a few hours earlier, and the scents from outside. They set off slowly; Rogue and Logan in the car behind them, until they reached the town and the trail was completely lost. The strongest traces were at the library and they pulled up outside the darkened building. Ruby got out of the car and leaned against it, breathing in deeply.

"It's here too. The strange scent. Whoever it belongs to was here within the last couple of days. And so was Regina."

Rogue nodded as she got out of the other car. "Yeah, she wanted to come here yesterday, she said she had some things to look up and I met her outside afterwards."

Ruby sniffed the air again. "You had hotdogs. And you weren't alone."

Rogue gave a shiver not entirely related to the freezing weather. "Why would anyone follow us?"

Ruby shrugged.

"Your guess is as good as mine, Rogue. But whoever they are, they've been hanging around for a long time." She sighed. "It's been in the back of my nose for so long that I don't even notice it anymore, but now I wish I'd flagged it to someone."

"You weren't to know," Scott said. "You can't go round looking for trouble all the time, it would send you mad."

"Yeah, don't beat yourself up about it," Logan said. "Regina left of her own accord. Whether your mysterious extra person had anything to do with that, well, we might never know. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, let's just concentrate on getting her home."

Ruby nodded. "Yes, we should split up. Call us if you get any leads."

It was at that moment that Ruby's phone began to ring with impeccable timing and in spite of everything, the four had to laugh at the coincidence.

It was the professor on the line.

_"Ruby, there's something that you ought to know, we don't know whether it will have any bearing on your search or not. Regina has a sister, around ten to twelve years older. It's possible that she has gone to find her. We have no information on her whereabouts and nothing we can use to track her, but she exists. I've just spoken to Hank, he's going to pull some strings to see what he can find out about the senior Miss Mills.”_

"Ok, thanks for letting us know. Wait."

Ruby moved the phone away from her ear to clear her head and she took another deep breath, picking up all the traces of scent that had been around the area during the last day or so, traces that were rapidly being washed away. Regina, Rogue, hot dogs, the myriad other people who had come in and out of the library. And the mystery scent that had been hanging around ever since Regina had arrived, a scent she had grown to associate with the younger girl. It was now that she realised just why it was so strange to her.

It smelled too much like Regina, and yet was not her. This was a different person, with similar enough genetic make-up that their individual scent had an undertone that struck a sensory cord. She swallowed hard around the lump in her throat.

"Prof, I've found the sister. She's right here in Salem, or at least, she was, and I get the feeling she left at the same time as Regina did."

_"You can smell her?"_

"Yep. But Prof, she's been here for _years_. Her scent has been present around Salem ever since Regina first came to the school. I just never made the connection till now."

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

_"This complicates things; as if the web was not already tangled enough."_

"We'll keep searching, Professor," Ruby said. "But this throws up a whole new can of worms as regards her travel arrangements."

If she had met up with her sister, then her sister could have organised transport, and if her sister’s power involved transportation in any way like a flyer or teleporter, then Regina could be anywhere in the world.

_"Indeed, and this makes the fact that I cannot locate Regina, Magneto or Mystique a little more sinister. Regina's sister is a wild card and we have no idea what her intentions might be or where her allegiances might lie."_

Ruby did not concentrate on the final formulaic words of the call as the professor wished her luck and promised to follow up as much as he could, and waited until they had hung up before she swore violently.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven**

Belle found Rum and Bae in the TV room. The screen was on, playing some old western movie, but it was clear that neither father nor son was watching it, and that they had been talking quietly between themselves until Belle had come in. Their sudden silence spoke volumes.

“I can go away again if you want,” she said, hovering by the doorway. Bae shook his head.

“Nah, it’s nothing. It’s all right, we weren’t talking about you.”

Belle smiled. “I’d know if you were. I can always tell when people are talking about me. It’s like a mental beacon starts flashing and I can’t turn it off. So be careful.”

Bae grinned, and it was good to see him looking so happy and relaxed after everything that he had been through recently. Rum too gave a wan smile as Belle came over. It was three days since Jean had allowed him out of the medical room, and he’d been following her orders and taking it pretty easy, spending most of his time in his room. It was good to see him out and about. In order to spare his ankle, they had given him a room on the ground floor near the professor’s quarters, since everything in that part of the building was already set up to cater for someone with limited mobility.  

“How are you getting on?” Belle asked. The question applied to both of their new arrivals, but it ended up being addressed more towards Rum, and Bae took that moment to absent himself from the room on the pretext of letting the two adults talk about boring adult things. Once he had gone, Rum gave a snort of weak laughter.

“I’m beginning to think that he’s got ulterior motives in leaving us alone together,” he muttered. “To answer your question, Belle, I’m getting on all right.” He paused. “Have you had any luck in finding Regina?” he asked.

Belle shook her head before sighing as she came over to Rum and flopped down onto the sofa beside him. “It must be a great impression of this place that you’ve got now. This safe haven for mutants can’t be particularly safe nor very much of a haven if its students run away from it all the time.”

“Young people do a lot of impulsive things,” Rum said. “I shouldn’t blame myself if I were you.”

“I know, there are a lot of things that are out of our control,” Belle said. “All the same, you still feel responsible, like there’s more that you could have done. I mean, the professor and I are telepaths, for heaven’s sake. We should have been able to pick up on her thoughts and stopped her.”

Rum shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. You can’t be in everyone’s mind all the time. I’d be concerned if you were. Regina’s a young woman on the brink of adulthood. She needs mental privacy as much as she needs physical privacy. If none of your powers tended to the telepathic, then you would still have had no way of knowing.”

Belle nodded slowly. “You’re right.”

They lapsed into silence for a while, and Belle focussed on drowning out the rush of thoughts around her into easily ignorable background noise. Everyone’s mental voices were louder and more persistent today, with all of the worries about Regina flying around, and she needed to be alert in case anything of use cropped up.

“I feel slightly guilty,” Rum said. “Is there anything I can do to help? It seems unfair on all of you that you need to be looking after me when Regina’s your main priority.”

“Thank you for the offer, but there’s really nothing that you can do,” Belle said.

“I know that my mutation is not particularly useful in these circumstances,” Rum said. “But I still feel like I should offer my services.”

Belle shook her head. “It’s not that, not at all. There’s nothing that any of us who are still here can do, except sit and wait for Regina to make contact. Besides, we can’t neglect everyone else in our care because one student has gone missing, as cruel as it sounds to say it. We can’t just drop everything. There are still several other children here who need to be fed and watered and cared for and reassured.” She paused. “If you really want to make yourself useful then I’m sure Marco would never refuse a hand in the kitchen, but I think we would all rather that you concentrated your energies on getting well again.”

In such close proximity, it was extremely hard not to overhear Rum’s thoughts, especially when they were as loud and worried as they were. It pained Belle that he thought so little of himself and that he felt that in order for him to have any worth, he needed to be doing something useful and earning his keep straight away, despite the fact that he had just been gravely injured and was still in need of a great deal of rest and recuperation. His concern at being made to leave the school as a drain on resources was eclipsed entirely by the thought of Bae being made to leave for whatever reason. Whenever it came down to it, even if it was his own survival at stake, Rum would always think of Bae first.

“No-one is going to make you leave here unless you want to go,” Belle said, keeping her voice low. She did not know why, there was no-one else in the vicinity to hear their conversation, but it was a matter of habit. When discussing something that had only taken place in someone’s head, she made sure that no-one else could hear it.

Rum looked at her sharply.

“I’m sorry, I can’t help overhearing particularly loud thoughts,” she added. Rum gave a wan smile.

“I must be mentally screaming at you right now,” he muttered.

“Not screaming. Only Emma’s voice does that because she can’t control her gift properly yet,” Belle said, her tone matter-of-fact. “Non-telepaths are usually always a nice, manageable volume.”

It was always a strange experience to talk about how her gift worked with someone who did not possess it, because she never really knew how to describe that feeling. Ruby was the one who understood it best, because Ruby heard everything too – just actual sounds, rather than mental ones. To anyone else, it was impossible to convey just what it felt like to be inside someone else’s head. Getting into someone else’s head and controlling them completely was still hard, and still gave her nosebleeds, ever since that first time when she had escaped from the asylum, so she had made the executive decision to stop trying. There was only so far that one could push one’s power.

“But honestly, Rum, you’re safe here, and all that we ask in return is that you don’t endanger the others. You need to focus on yourself now.”

Rum shook his head. “I’ve already done that for far too long,” he said. “There’s nothing like a near death experience to put your life into perspective. It’s just…”

He tailed off but the rest of the sentence was clear as day inside his mind. _I’m still scared, Belle_.

Belle gave him a small smile.

_We’ll help you to be brave. Bae and I._

Rum turned his attention back to the television, and Belle pulled away from the mental connection. The conversation was closed, although she had no idea how successful it had been in allaying his fears, and it was best not to push any further. With someone like Rum, the more you pushed, the more you pushed them away and caused them to retreat back into their own shell. He needed space, and Belle would give him that space as much as her gift would allow her. She looked down at the fine chain around her wrist and smiled. So Rum’s gift might not have any kind of practical application that would help them at the moment, but it was still something that could bring joy.

Presently Belle felt, rather than heard, an incoherent wave of panic wash over her from Rum’s direction, and she looked over at him in alarm. Although someone with his skin would never be said to go pale, he looked as if he should have been bleach white, his eyes wide and his claw-like fingernails digging into the arm of the sofa so hard that they punctured the leather. Rum didn’t even notice, he just kept staring at the television, and Belle followed his gaze. The film had finished and the news bulletins were rolling, showing a report from a business launch, some global conglomerate owner with more money than sense making a no doubt jargon-filled speech at the opening of a petrochemical refinery. There was nothing inherently sinister about the scene, in as much as global conglomerates could be called ‘nothing inherently sinister’, but Rum was still fearful.

“Rum?” Belle said. _Rum?_

She got no response, either verbally or over the mental connection.

“Rum, please, tell me what the matter is. What can I do to help?”

He came back to himself in that moment, blinking and nodding at the TV. His voice was choked and he was evidently having to force the words out.

“Her,” he said. “The woman at the back with the stitches in her face.”

Belle followed his gaze to the screen and found the woman he was talking about; she was around Rum’s age with brunette hair and a very nasty looking cut held together with stark stitches down one of her cheeks.

“What about…” Belle began, but the words trailed off in her mouth as she realised that she recognised the scarred face from the flashes of Bae’s memories that she had seen when they had first come to the school a week ago. “She was hunting you, wasn’t she?”

Rum nodded slowly.

“It’s more than that,” he said. His voice was barely more than a whisper. “Her name is Milah Weaver. She’s my ex-wife. She’s Bae’s mother.”

X

_She’s Bae’s mother._

It was the first time Rum had said the words out loud, despite telling himself that he was going to have to have the conversation with Bae after the confrontation in the alleyway. In all the hustle and bustle of their rescue, and his own recuperation, and now the turmoil that the school had been thrown into and that they were getting swept up in, it had been pushed to the back of his mind and his subconscious had been quite happy to leave it there until he had seen this forcible reminder on the TV screen in front of him.

“Rum?”

Belle was talking to him, Rum could tell that much, but he was too wound up in his own thoughts to really pay her much heed.

Milah. After almost fifteen years, she had not only come back into his life, but was showing no signs of leaving it again, first with the attack on him and Bae and now on the TV… it seemed as if she was following him around. Rum was vaguely aware that the professor had come into the room and started talking to Belle in that strange, half-verbal, half-silent conversation that the two were masters at, and then Belle was crouching in front of him, gently touching her fingers to his temple and sending a bright, clear thought into his mind, cutting through all of the tumultuous memories and sensations that were threatening to overwhelm him.

_Rum, it’s all right. We’re right here. You’re safe._

Finally, Rum focussed on her.

“It’s a very long story,” he said eventually, ashamed of quite how broken and croaky his voice sounded. But then, Milah had that effect on him. He had been downtrodden by society long before he had met her, but she had been the one to break him completely, offering love and then snatching it away again.

_You don’t have to tell it if you don’t want to,_ Belle said in his mind. _I can look at your memories and you can show me if it would be easier, but I can appreciate if you don’t want to relive the moments._

Rum shook his head.

“I’m already reliving them. Having you see them as well won’t make all that much difference.”

“Ok,” Belle replied. She settled herself into a more comfortable position and touched her hands to the sides of his head again, palms hovering over his ears. “If you want me to stop at any point, just imagine a door, and close it. That way I’ll know to pull back and not go any further.”

Rum closed his eyes as Belle began to pull through his memories in search of Milah, until she found that first phone call when it had all begun, a phone call from a client who was so grateful that he’d been able to fix a necklace that had been in her family for generations and that all other jewellers had deemed irreparable.

_“Can we meet?” the woman, a Miss Milah Weaver, said._

_Rum shook his head, fully aware that she could not see it at the other end of the phone but unable to stop himself._

_“I really don’t think that’s a good idea.”_

_“Why not? I’d really like to thank you in person for the job you’ve done.”_

_“I, erm…” He couldn’t very well say “I’m green”, could he? And saying “I’m a mutant” would not exactly help him to maintain his cover either. “I, erm, I look a bit odd.”_

_“Okay…” Milah did not sound at all convinced by his excuse. “Well, you know, I’m pretty well-travelled. I’ve seen a lot of odd.”_

_Rum looked around the basement of the pink Victorian that he had lived in with his aunts ever since the day that his powers had arrived and his father had walked out in disgust at the freak he had for a son. He really did need to get out more, the aunts kept telling him that, convinced that one day he would find someone who would see beyond his unusual skin and love him not in spite of it but because of it, and embrace it as a part of him._

_“All right,” he said eventually. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”_

The memories jumped to that first meeting with Milah, one of very few times that he had met one of his customers face to face. It was to be the last time, but he hadn’t known it then. She had been a little unnerved by his appearance, the thick white greasepaint obscuring his features, but she hadn’t run at the first sight of him.

_“Are you wearing make-up, Mr Gold?”_

_“Yes, Miss Weaver.”_

She had not asked why. She had never asked why, and Rum had always assumed that she had figured it out for herself. She had been a bit shocked, the first time that she had seen him without make-up, but she’d stood her ground, and they’d continued their fledgling relationship. Everything had seemed so easy, so natural and genuine. He had never had to hide with Milah. She had seen past his mutation to the man beneath. At least, he had always thought she had. Now he was not so sure. Had it all been just some kind of elaborate game? But they had been together for almost three years, which was a long time to commit to a pretence. She had seemed to be so genuinely happy when he had asked her to marry him.

_Yes_ , Belle’s voice echoed through the memories. _Yes, she looks happy._

_I don’t know what went wrong_ , Rum lamented. _I don’t know what I did._

Belle moved her hand from his left temple and took his, where it was still resting on the arm of the sofa above the puncture marks his nails had left.

_I’m sure you did not do anything, Rum. People change, and they can change overnight sometimes. Believe me, I know._

She was back in his memories now, moving through them quickly and seamlessly as they reached the wedding, and then the hotel afterwards, Rum washing off his make-up in the bathroom mirror, so aware of Milah in bed waiting for him…

The door had slammed shut in his mind before he even realised what he was doing and Belle jerked backwards suddenly, almost losing her balance.

“Sorry! I’m sorry!” Rum shot out his arms to break her fall.

“Thanks,” Belle said. She seemed to become aware of his arms around her at that moment, and as she regained her position with an awkward cough, so Rum realised too that he was still holding her tightly, and he let her go, looking away before the embarrassment threatened to overwhelm him.

“I’m sorry,” Belle said. “I should have realised what that memory was.”

It was his wedding night, which was not a memory to be shared with others at the best of times, but Rum had been apart from Milah long enough that he felt no particular need to protect her participation in the act. It was more to save his own face. His lifestyle being reclusive as it was, he had been a virgin before that night and he had no desire for Belle to witness his inexpert fumblings; there was no need for her to think him even more pathetic than she already no doubt did… And he had just realised that she could probably hear all of these thoughts that he was having about himself so it was all in vain.

“So what happened to cause you two to divorce?” Belle asked gently, politely ignoring his train of thought. “You seemed so happy, both of you.”

Rum sighed.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I just know that Milah wasn’t happy after our marriage. She was a social person, she loved being out and about and going to parties and going to places, and I was the opposite, shutting myself away from the world all the time, with only my spinning wheel and the calming hum of gold for company. In hindsight I should probably have made more of an effort.”

He glanced over at the TV screen again but the bulletin had changed and Milah’s picture was long gone.

Belle shrugged. “Perhaps. But marriage is about compromise, working together.”

Rum still could not meet her eyes. “I don’t think she really understood what she was letting herself in for in marrying me. The world is not kind to people like us, Belle, and it is not kind to the people who love us, either. She was exposed to just as much ridicule as I was, but there was nothing to be done about that. There was no use in moving to a new place because exactly the same thing would happen. There are many things that we can change about ourselves and work to overcome, but basic DNA is not one of them. Things came to a head after she fell pregnant. Things got steadily worse and worse over those nine months, and then that was when she left. Just after Bae was born. She couldn’t stand to raise a child who might turn out to be a mutant like his father.”

She had walked out of their lives, and she had not come back into them until now. And still, Rum could not help but wonder what had happened over the course of their time together to turn her so completely, from a woman who had loved a mutant to one who was actively trying to eradicate them.

Perhaps he did not really know her at all.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve**

**One Year Ago…**

Belle loved the natural history museum. She was a huge fan of all museums and galleries and during her few years away from the school whilst she had been attending college and working, she had visited as many as she could get to, but the natural history museum was always one of her favourites and she never minded coming back to it, even when she was chaperoning several students and did not have as much leisure to look at the exhibits herself. They were walking through the Evolution exhibits and listening to the tour guide explaining natural mutation in a way that had most of the students smiling wryly: there was not much that you could teach a classful of mutants about natural mutation. Idly Belle wondered if any of them would start asking the guide any questions about _homo superior_ since they were talking about _homo erectus_ and _homo sapiens_ , but thankfully none of them did. Belle really didn’t want to have to try and perform any kind of mass memory loss on the innocent bystanders who might get caught in the crossfire should things get out of hand. Usually the kids were pretty good when they were out and about, and indeed, the older kids were allowed to come and go from the house as they pleased outside of their lessons as long as they were back before curfew. All the same, there had been the occasional incident in the past and Belle had no desire for a repeat performance, especially without the professor with them to perform the necessary damage control.

She looked over the top of the younger students’ heads and caught Ruby’s eye, and her friend smiled. Since she had brought Emma to the school two years prior, Belle had not left, except to make the necessary arrangements in her temporary home and move her things back into the school. Sometimes Belle wondered if she had made the wrong choice in deciding to give up the career that she had been building for herself, but she always came to the conclusion that no, she had done the right thing when she had come back to the institute. Although she had loved studying library science and would have enjoyed working at the library for as long as she could, there was always something at the back of her mind telling her that there was something more for her to do in life. She supposed that she had not really recognised the calling at first because she had been at the school, the place she called home, for so long, and she had always been of the impression that in order to find one’s true vocation in life, one had to leave the proverbial nest. Belle had done that – only to discover in that moment when she had heard Emma’s desperate thoughts, that her calling lay back in the place she knew as home. Adventures were all very well, but whilst travelling to Salem with Emma, Belle realised that this was what she wanted to do most of all: to help her own kind, and that was a goal that could best be achieved at the school with all its resources.  

“I’ve got this,” Ruby mouthed. “Go and take a look around.”

Belle nodded. She wouldn’t go far, she certainly wouldn’t leave the Evolution exhibit, but it would be nice to take a look at things at her own pace, rather than be rushed through by the overeager tour guide. She moved back to the replica skeletons of the Neanderthals and began to read the captions that went with them, and it did not really register when someone came up beside her and began reading the same information. She was aware that a large, squarely built man was standing next to her and that his thoughts were focussed on the exhibit. Had she been paying attention to what was going on in her head rather than what was going on around her, she might have noticed that his thought patterns seemed very vaguely pre-known to her, but as it was, she did not receive any kind of indicators as to his identity until a sudden breeze from the museum’s main entrance doors tugged the pamphlets she was holding out of her grasp and scattered them at her feet. As she bent to pick them up, so the man crouched down to help her, and as he stood, pressing the papers into her hands, she caught a glimpse of his face.

Belle froze. No mental tricks of the trade could have held her in position better than the utter shock that was gripping her from head to toe now.

The man’s brow furrowed. “Are you all right, Miss?” he asked.

Belle couldn’t respond. What could she say?

_Yes Papa, I’m fine, no thanks to you._

What do you say to the man who disowned you when you were twelve, who left you to rot in an asylum with no intention of ever seeing you again, to the extent where seventeen years later he has no idea who you are?

“Miss, are you all right?” Moe French repeated.

Belle gave a slow nod, not trusting herself to speak for fear that if she opened her mouth she would either vomit, scream, or starting crying uncontrollably, none of which were appropriate reactions in the middle of a public building.

“Ok…” Unconvinced but obviously aware that he was not going to get any kind of coherent response from her, Moe began to walk away, until Ruby’s voice, calling from the other side of the exhibit, stopped him in his tracks.

“Belle?” she called. “Are you ok, sweetie?”

Belle closed her eyes, giving a minute shake of her head but not knowing what earthly way there was of resolving the situation. In that moment, all she wanted to do was teleport out of there.

Her father’s mind, which had been background noise up until that moment, suddenly burst into life within her own, his thoughts jumbled and fearful.

_Belle? Oh my God…_

“Belle, are you all right?” Ruby had come over from the rest of the kids and was helping her get to her feet; Belle was grateful for her friend’s strong arms as support since there was no way that her legs were ready to take her weight just yet.

“I’m ok,” she finally managed to say, although her voice was barely a choked whisper around the words.

“Like hell you are,” Ruby muttered. She glanced up at Moe, who was still frozen, staring down in horror at his daughter. “Can we help you?” she snapped.

“I…” he began, but tailed off, shaking his head.

“Well, as you can see my friend is ill so could you please either stop gawping and move on or make yourself useful and get her some water?”

“Ruby, no…” Belle tried to protest, she couldn’t think of anything worse than her friend being dragged into the… whatever it was between her and her father. This was something that had to be sorted out between the two of them. “I just need some air, I’ll be fine, I promise.”

“Belle, you’re shaking, you can barely stand,” Ruby said, wrapping one arm around Belle’s shoulders and reaching for her phone with the other hand, swiping it alive and hitting a speed dial. “Hey Storm, it’s Ruby, could you come over and keep an eye on the kids in Evolution please? Belle’s not very well, I’m going to take her outside.”

“Ruby, I’ll be fine, honestly…”

Storm arrived a few moments later, giving Belle a sympathetic look as she went over to take over supervising the class and Ruby walked Belle slowly towards the exit, sitting her down on a low wall outside in the sunshine.

“You’re not fine,” Ruby said, her tone hushed as she crouched in front of her friend. “Please, Belle, tell me what’s wrong?”

Belle shook her head. “It’s nothing, it’s something stupid, it’s…”

“Belle.” Ruby raised one eyebrow. “Belle, please tell me what’s up. I was scared stiff back there.”

Belle took a deep breath and reached out towards Ruby’s face, pressing her fingertips to her temple. Ruby recognised the touch for what it was and leaned into it, letting Belle project into her mind.

_It’ll be easier to show you. I can’t put it into words yet._

She combed her memories and presented a few choice ones to Ruby, of her mum and dad when she was little, of her mother’s funeral, of her gift first manifesting, and the last time she saw her father before going into the asylum. And then, meeting her dad again in the museum.

She pulled away at Ruby’s little exclamation of shock.

“That _bastard_ ,” she hissed, looking over Belle’s shoulder at the entrance to the museum. “I’ll kill him!”

“No, Ruby, please. That won’t solve anything. Please… I just need to talk to him.”

“You can’t be…”

“Serious? Ruby, I am deadly serious. It’s all right for you, you came to the school of your own accord when things got too much for you at home. I never had that choice. The only reason I ever met you is because of that man.” She looked away. “I was twelve, Ruby. Seventeen years I’ve spent blocking it all out of my memory but still being unable to let go of that one simple question. _Why_? Why would someone give up on their own family like that?”

“Oh Belle…” Ruby wrapped her arms around her friend. “Belle, we’re your family. That’s the whole point. Family doesn’t give up on each other.”

“So why did mine give up on me?” Belle croaked. She had told herself that she was not going to cry, but now she couldn’t stop the tears from pricking her eyelids and soaking into Ruby’s shoulder.

“Belle…” Ruby rubbed her back as Belle continued to sob, her crying finally finding voice as she gave a heartfelt wail into the fabric of Ruby’s coat. “Belle, he’s not worth your time or attention, please believe me. This wasn’t something that you did wrong; this is all on him, I promise.”

Belle did not take in her friend’s words, overwhelmed with so many years’ worth of suppressed emotions as she was. She had not cried over her situation for a very long time, although she had cried herself to sleep every night for months after she had first been taken to the asylum. Since then, though, her emotions had crystallised from sadness and distress into something more akin to anger, and a desire not for revenge but for confrontation, for answers. It was a feeling that had made her determined, rather than sad, but now that she had seen her father again and had the opportunity for that confrontation that she had always wanted, all the emotions from so many years ago were back, and she was once more a scared twelve-year-old girl saying goodbye to her father for what was going to be the last time.

She had always thought that speaking to him years later would bring her some kind of catharsis, and although Belle was not so sure now, she still wanted to try. The desire to know was winning out over all other needs for self-preservation, because if she were to forego this opportunity now, she might never have another, and her questions would remain unanswered and gnawing at the back of her subconscious mind for the rest of her life.

“I have to talk to him, Ruby,” she said simply, drying her eyes and blowing her nose.

“Only if you’re absolutely sure,” Ruby said, and her tone of voice made it clear that she did not think it was a good idea without the need for Belle to read her mind.

Belle nodded, and she sat back, closing her eyes and concentrating on the mass of mental voices inside the museum. It was easier to pick out her father’s now that she knew what she was looking for, and she found him still in Evolution, still stunned by the events that had just occurred.

“Well, I’ll be right by your side if you need me,” Ruby said. “Just yell. Mentally, verbally… You know Storm and I will come running.”

“I know.” Belle managed a weak smile, she did not know what she would have done without her friends on hand to reassure her. “Thank you.”

Together the two women went back inside the museum towards the exhibit where the drama had occurred. The tour guide and the group of students had since moved on and the area was comparatively quiet, with only a few other museum visitors minding their own business, and her father sitting on a bench in the middle of the area, staring at his shoes.

Belle went to sit on the other end of the bench. She did not look at him. It was easier to remain objective if she didn’t have to look at his face.

“I need to talk to you,” she began, aware of how strained her voice was sounding but unwilling to put any emotion into it. He had already seen how badly the sight of him had affected her, she could not let him see how much mental pressure she was still under.

“Belle…”

“No, you don’t get to talk to me, not after what you did. I’m going to ask you a question, and you’re going to give me a straight answer. Why did you do it?”

There was silence.

“I was scared, I guess.”

Belle shook her head. “Not good enough. You were scared of your own daughter. What about me? Don’t you think I was scared? Suddenly having all these voices in my head and everyone telling me that I was crazy? I was terrified, but you decided that your own fears were worth more than mine and you sent me away. I was _twelve_.”

“Belle, I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not,” Belle hissed. “If you were sorry, you would have come and got me out of that hellhole. If you were sorry, you would have tracked me down and found me and apologised. If you were sorry, you wouldn’t have acted like I was dead and buried with Mum.”

“You’ve got to understand, Bluebell…”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Belle…”

“What have I got to understand?”

“When you find out someone isn’t who you think they are.”

“You make it sound like some kind of deliberate deception. I have no control over my DNA. I’m still Belle. I’m still the same person I’ve always been, however broken inside I might have become. Do you know how long I spent in that asylum waiting for you to come and pick me up like you promised, when I was better? Four years. A teenage girl locked in a box for four years. Did you wonder what might happen to me? Did I ever even cross your mind or did you just stick another stone in the ground next to Mum’s and pretend I wasn’t around anymore?”

“Belle, it wasn’t like that, it broke my heart to do it but it was the best way…”

“The best way?” Belle shook her head. “Trying to convince your daughter she was insane and locking her up with no intention of ever seeing her again was the best way… To do what, exactly?”

Anger had taken over now. All the feelings of sadness and worthlessness that she had felt outside with Ruby had been pushed to the back of her mind now that she was actually talking to her father. Belle knew, objectively, that coming at things from a place of anger was never a good idea, but in this case, it felt justified. Her father had broken her spirit once before, seventeen years ago, but he was not going to do it again.

“I don’t know… Belle, I didn’t know what to do. I just did what I thought was best for both of us.”

“No, you did what you thought was best for you. I was going to cause a problem, so instead of trying to solve it, you just got rid of it. Well… I didn’t go away. I’m still here, and I’m stronger than ever, despite everything that happened. I’m strong, and I have my own life, and I spend it making sure that no-one else like me is treated in the same way that I was. Do you see the impact you’ve had on me, even though you haven’t been around? Your legacy stretches further than you think.” She paused. “Ruby’s right. You don’t deserve to be called family. I have my own family now, one that acts like a family should. You pushed me out of your life once, but now it’s my turn. Your daughter was dead in your eyes. My father is dead in mine. Good day, Mr French. Please enjoy the exhibit, I’m sure you’ll find it most enlightening.”

She got up and left him, going over to where Ruby was hovering just out of earshot, and as soon as they were out of sight around the corner, she let out a shaky breath.

“You ok?” Ruby asked, patting her shoulder gently as Belle took a couple of deep breaths. “You did what you had to do?”

Belle nodded. “Yes.”

“You got the answers you wanted?”

“No, not the answers I wanted. I don’t think that any answer would have been the one that I wanted.” She sighed. “There’s no good answer in that situation. But I got an answer, and that was what I needed.”

“You look like you need a cup of tea.” Ruby was steering her in the direction of the cafeteria, where the kids were sitting with their packed lunches and the other chaperones were nursing paper cups of coffee.

“Half a bottle of tequila would be great if you have it,” Belle muttered.

“Do you feel any better now, for that?” Ruby asked as they were standing in the queue to get their drinks.

Belle nodded.

“I feel lousy,” she said, her voice matter of fact. “But yes… There’s closure now, where there wasn’t before. I can put that pain away in its box now and feel no guilt in forgetting all about it. It’s over. That part of my life is over and I can concentrate on the future. With my _real_ family.”

Ruby smiled and gave her friend another hug.

“Well sis, the tea is on me.”

_I’m glad you’re going to be ok_ , she said mentally.

Belle just smiled. It was all going to work out in the end.

 

%MCEPASTEBIN%


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter Thirteen**

In a house with so many inhabitants of so many different ages, dispositions and gifts, it was a foregone conclusion that at any given point during the night, someone would be awake and about, especially when at least one of the students had a gift that meant they neither required nor were physically able to sleep. Usually Belle was a pretty sound sleeper and could ignore all the various creaking pipes and cracking floorboards in the house, as well as the various other people moving around the place, but tonight this was not to be. She couldn't say that she blamed anyone, including herself, for being so restless, not in their current situation, with Regina still missing without trace and the search parties still out looking for her. She sighed. Lying in bed staring at the ceiling wasn't going to help, so she might as well stop pretending to sleep and get up and do something vaguely productive, even if that vaguely productive thing ended up being turning the school upside down in search of Logan's contraband liquor supply. She got out of bed quietly and made her way down the stairs towards the kitchen, popping her head around the door to the TV room. 

"You ok, Artie?"

"Yep.”

He replied without looking round and Belle smiled, watching the documentary over his shoulder for a while before moving on in the direction of the kitchen. She remembered the first time that she had come into this kitchen in the middle of the night on her first day here, finding Storm and Ruby in the midst of their midnight feast, and as she approached the room, she could hear that someone else was already inside it and see that the lights were on. Whoever they were, they were not making any effort to be discreet. 

Belle inched open the door and peered round before inserting herself fully and leaning in the frame, watching the scene that was playing out. Rum was sitting at the kitchen table in a dressing gown nursing a cup of tea in one hand whilst the other was concentrated on manipulating the gold in Marco's spectacle frames, making it snake over the table in molten patterns whilst Marco made the lenses tap dance. It was something so innocent and light-hearted that Belle could not help but smile and give a huff of soft laughter which betrayed her presence. Marco and Rum looked over at her, a little sheepish, and the glasses reformed themselves into the shape that they were supposed to be. 

"Hey, don't stop on my account," she said. "I think we need all the little bright moments we can get right now." 

She came over and took the seat beside Marco, helping herself to a cup of tea from the pot that was on the table. 

"Do you think anyone here is actually asleep?" Marco asked. Belle shook her head. 

"I doubt it. I've heard scurrying footsteps all night and the mental background noise is louder than usual. Or maybe that's just me, I'm concentrating on it more... I don't want to miss anything, just in case. We can't lose anyone else."

Marco reached across and patted her hand. "We will find Regina again," he said. "I promise. And we are not going to lose anyone else. If you concentrate too hard your nose will start bleeding again."

Belle reached up and touched her fingertips to the bridge of her nose. It was not in danger of bleeding but it was remarkably tender; she had been so focussed on trying to keep a handle on everything that was going on in the house that she had not realised just how much concentration and energy she was expending on the task until it had been pointed out to her. Coming to think of it, that was probably the reason why she couldn't sleep, her brain unable to switch off from the background noise in case she picked up on something vital that could help them prevent another incident like Regina. 

"You will not help anyone if you put yourself in danger," Marco said sagely, and he squeezed her hand.

The three of them remained in silence for a while until the shrill beeping of the oven timer brought them all back into the moment, and Belle had to burst out laughing at the sound.

"When you do "skulking around in the middle of the night", Marco, you really don't do subtle," she said as the older man jumped up from the table and went to rescue his biscuits from the oven.

"Well, you know. These children, they can smell baked goods over a mile away; I don't think that sneaking around making no noise is going to keep them away from the kitchen."

"I think you've just ensured that everyone in the entire school is going to be awake and coming down here for a midnight snack," Belle pointed out. "Still, I suppose that the circumstances are rather unusual and the rules can be relaxed a little."

Marco paid her no attention; he was too busy getting his biscuits onto cooling racks. Belle tilted her head on one side. "Why are they in the shape of elephants?"

Beside her Rum shrugged. "Why not?"

Presently the soft crunch of gravel under tires and the low hum of an idling engine outside caught their attention, and Belle glanced over to the window. They could not see the drive from the kitchen, but she knew that this would be one of the search parties returning empty-handed. The school would already know if they had actually found Regina.  Belle listened out for the thought patterns, trying to determine who had come back, but then remembered Marco's words and shook her head, pulling back. She would be getting an update soon enough. 

Whoever it was appeared to be having some trouble with their keys, and Belle ventured out of the kitchen and down the corridors to the main door, unlocking it from the inside and opening it a fraction to see Logan standing outside, Rogue in his arms.

"Thanks," he said, as Belle stood aside to let them in. 

"Cripes, Logan..." Belle began on seeing Rogue's prone form.

"She's fine," Logan cut in. "She's just asleep. Poor kid's exhausted."

Belle sighed. "I'm not surprised. Come on, let's get her upstairs."

It was slow but steady progress towards the upper levels of the school, with Belle holding all necessary doors open and switching lights on and off, although since it had already been established that hardly anyone was asleep, she was not quite sure why they were being so secretive. Once they had reached Rogue's room, she stirred a little as Logan put her down and Belle pulled her boots off, but did not wake, just turning over on her bed and burrowing into the blankets. Logan gave a wan smile and patted her gloved hand. 

"You did good, kid," he said. "Get some sleep, you deserve it."

Together they left the room and made their way back down the stairs towards the kitchen. Belle had more than once wondered about the friendship between Rogue and Logan. They were not the most likely of companions, but having arrived  at the place together and gone through all that they had last year, their gravitation towards each other, vastly different personalities aside, was not too surprising. Rogue got on with her peers well enough, but Belle had always received the distinct impression that Logan would be the one that she would go to with her problems, and had it been Rogue whom they were looking for right now, it would have been Logan whom Belle would have thought best equipped to go and find her. And Logan had a soft spot for the girl, that was obvious. Maybe a little more than a soft spot on both their parts, but Belle would never pry that far into their mental workings. Rogue would turn eighteen in a couple of months, but even so, Belle thought she knew Logan well enough to be assured in the knowledge that he would never do anything that would place the younger woman in any kind of vulnerable position. Perhaps, a year or so down the line, something might blossom, and Belle would be content if it grew. 

"Gingerbread elephant?" Marco asked, offering them the plate as they entered. Belle grabbed one, biting off the trunk.

"Thanks, Marco," she mumbled through a mouthful of crumbs. Logan passed up on the baked goods. 

"I need something a bit stronger than gingerbread," he muttered, turning on his heel and leaving the kitchen again. Belle heard him going out through the main door and she wondered if he and Rogue had stopped at a 24-hour liquor store somewhere on their way back to the school. Sure enough, when he returned he was carrying a six-pack. 

"Don't tell the professor," he growled as he cracked one open. 

Belle gave a snort of laughter and continued to nibble on her elephant. "He'd probably be joining you, Logan. But fear not, the secret's safe with us."

The four adults in the kitchen lapsed into silence with their chosen snacks and beverages. 

"So what happens now?" Rum asked presently, leaning back in his chair and wincing slightly at the pain from his ribs.

"We just wait, I guess," Logan said. "Start the search again in the morning. Maybe Ruby got further than we could?" He looked at Belle hopefully but she shook her head. 

"We haven't heard anything from her, and I'd expect her to call. She's not into heroic entrances, she cares about the kids too much."

"Quite the party in here, isn't it? Why wasn't I invited?"

The others turned on hearing the new voice to find Storm in the doorway. She came in fully and flopped down at the table beside Logan, raising her eyebrows at the beer but making no comment, and she reached across to the take the offered elephant from Marco. 

"It's a select group," Belle said. "Insomniacs only. If you can find us then you're allowed in."

"You'll have half the school in here in a minute," Storm pointed out. "The entire house smells of gingerbread."

"I think a mass midnight feast is going to be the least of our worries," Belle said. "Let's face it, Storm, no-one's going to be concentrating in lessons tomorrow as it is, and half of us will be otherwise occupied with the search for Regina."

Storm nodded; she remembered similar events in the past that had thrown the school completely off kilter. "We'll manage. We always do. It's not the first time we've been shaken like this." She turned to Logan. "Did you get very far?"

Logan shook his head. "Trail ran cold a few miles out. Ruby picked up a trace scent and she and Scott went after it. I kept to the town; investigated all her usual haunts with Rogue. She was at the library earlier today, that's all we've got."

"She can't just have vanished," Storm said. "She's out there somewhere."

Storm didn't need to say the words; they were all thinking them. Regina was definitely out there somewhere, but whether or not she would be alive when they found her was a different matter. Belle sighed; now was as good a time as any to break the further bad news that was conspiring with Regina's flit to keep her awake. 

"The labs are hunting," she said simply, and she saw Rum's shudder out of the corner of her eye. "We're sure she's with Magneto, but I can't help thinking... what if she's not?"

Since Rum had seen Milah on the TV earlier that evening, it had become clear to Belle and the professor that something very sinister was going on out there, and as soon as he had been made aware of the news, the professor had retreated to his study to call in the necessary favours and get some kind of investigation underway. It was going to be a long process, linking a successful businessman to a shadowy illegal organisation simply by dint of one woman with stitches in her cheek and the testimony of a man who had been under extreme stress at the time. 

Storm reached across the table and took her friend's hand.

"We'll find her, Belle. We've just got to keep thinking positive."

Despite her words, Storm was just as worried by that bleak possibility as Belle was; in such close proximity her thoughts were unavoidable. 

Presently there was another crunch of tires on gravel. 

"Scott and Ruby?" Marco asked. Belle pushed out a little into the house's surroundings and picked up the mental signatures of the two absent staff members, and she nodded. Sure enough, a few minutes later, they arrived in the kitchen. Scott shook his head at their questioning looks; Ruby did not make any kind of indication of noticing that there was anyone else in the room and went straight for Logan's beer, opening a can and chugging down half of it before leaning back against the breakfast bar and letting out a long sigh. 

"We tracked her as far as Albany but then the trail went cold," she said eventually. "I can't get a lead on where she might have gone from there; there's too much snow on the ground and the sister... whatever her power is, I reckon she's helping to cover their tracks. We've been following unusually high tailwinds the entire time which hasn't been helping on catching any traces. Number one rule of hunting - stay downwind. Wherever we go, we're constantly upwind; any kind of trace is being blown away from us. I'd say her power was similar to yours, Storm, to be honest."

Storm shrugged. "I tend to feel sudden changes - high winds, impending thunderstorms... You can tell by the air pressure. I'd like to think I would have known something wasn't right but it's entirely possible."

Rum snorted. "Maybe she creates tornadoes and she's taken Regina to Oz."

"The professor met someone who could create tornadoes once," Marco said. "Don't disregard it. Oz might be a little farfetched though."

"Only theory I can come up with," Rum said. Once more they lapsed into silence, the only sound breaking it being Logan popping another beer and handing it to Ruby, who accepted without a word before reaching over and snaffling a gingerbread elephant. 

A thought shot into Belle's head, and even before she processed it, she knew that it could only have come from one person.

_Damn_! Emma's mental voice betrayed a great deal of disappointment. _Someone's already there_.

Belle pressed a hand over her mouth to hide her smile and try to stop her bursting out laughing, and on seeing Storm's quirked eyebrow, indicated for the rest of the adults to keep quiet whilst she picked up the plate of cookies and went over to the door, opening it to find Emma and Bae outside. 

"Looking for these?" she asked, presenting the plate and letting the two younger ones take an elephant each. 

"We were really quiet as well!" Emma said indignantly. Belle just gave her a knowing look and tapped her temple, and Emma rolled her eyes before peering into the room past the older telepath. "So, do you often have staff meetings in the kitchen at one in the morning?" she asked. 

"Oh, come in kids, you're up anyway," Storm said, and Belle stood back to let them in, with Logan surreptitiously hiding the beer under the table as they entered. 

"Hey Dad," Bae said. He at least had the decency to sound a little bit sheepish, but Rum merely shook his head in good-natured despair.

"Why am I not surprised?"

Emma looked around at the gathered adults. 

"Is there any sign of Regina?" she asked. "I'm worried about her. Do you think it was something I said?"

Belle shook her head. "We haven't found her yet, but we're going to keep looking. And I’m sure it wasn’t anything that you did or said, Emma.”

“You don’t know that, though,” Emma said. “We argue a lot. I mean… A lot.”

Belle sighed. Perhaps her frequent fights with Emma had been a factor in Regina’s decision to flee, but she refused to believe that they could be the only reason. The two girls had been antagonising each other for years; why would it suddenly have an effect? No, Belle was certain that the trigger lay elsewhere, and after what the professor had told her about Regina’s sister – and what Ruby had confirmed from the scent signatures – she was certain that the answer lay with the unknown sibling who appeared to have been stalking the girl from the day she arrived. That gave Belle cause to shudder; the idea that she had become so used to the sister’s background thoughts, just as Ruby had become so used to her scent, that they simply didn’t pick up on them anymore, and once again she found herself lamenting the ways in which they had failed Regina. She wondered whether to share the revelation of Regina’s sister with Emma, to try and put the girl’s mind at ease, but she decided against it. It would open up a whole other can of worms and a lot more questions that Belle was not quite sure that she was ready to answer yet.

“We won’t know why she ran until we find her,” Storm said levelly, addressing Emma as the two teens came into the room fully and sat down at the table, Emma beside Belle and Bae next to Rum, who put an arm around his son. Bae leaned into his dad’s shoulder, regarding the rest of the adults through eyes that were definitely awake but also definitely tired.

“It doesn’t matter why she went,” Storm continued, “what matters is making sure that she’s safe. If you think that it was something to do with you, then when we find her, you two can have that discussion.”

Emma nodded, and finished her elephant, and they continued to sit in the kitchen for a while, just enjoying the quiet and the novelty of the situation. The plate of cookies was becoming rapidly depleted and for a moment Belle thought that Marco was going to get up and make a second batch, but the older man simply yawned and stretched out his arms,

“I think it is time we all went back to bed,” he said. “It’s been a long day.” Everyone nodded their agreement, and people began to make their way back to their beds, or to their beds for the first time in Scott, Ruby and Logan’s cases, until Belle and Rum were left alone in the kitchen.

“She’ll come back,” Rum said, tracing a fingertip around the rim of his teacup and watching Belle through those unusual eyes of his, a colour unlike any Belle had seen in the world, and yet still capable of such depth of expression, like now. “You’re a family here, and people don’t give up on their family. Not the family they choose for themselves, at any rate.”

Belle sighed. “We are a family, you’re right. I just don’t know whether Regina feels the same way. Perhaps blood runs thicker than water. I don’t know.”

“The blood of the covenant runs thicker than the water of the womb,” Rum quoted.

Belle looked over at him and smiled. “You know your proverbs, Mr Gold.”

“My aunts drilled them into me. I don’t regret it now, however much I might have done at the time. They weren’t technically family, just friends of my grandparents. But they took care of me, and that was what mattered.”

Belle nodded. “Well… We may not be your aunts, but we will take care of you, and Bae.”

Rum smiled, a genuine smile that reached his eyes and made them crinkle at the corners, a smile Belle had really only seen when Bae was around.

“Thank you. I’m honoured.”

“We’re a sort of family,” Belle said. “It’s what we do.”

 


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter Fourteen**

There were quite a lot of decisions that Regina had made in her life that she had regretted. She had regretted the decision to climb the honeycrisp tree against her father's advice that had led to a broken arm. She had regretted the decision to test out whether she was immune to her own powers that had led to pretty severe food poisoning for a week. But the decision to leave the safety of the school was definitely the most terrible decision that she had ever made, and she regretted it more than anything she had done in her life thus far.

She stared up at the cavern ceiling, at the smooth metal there. It looked like Cerebro, from the brief glimpses of the room she'd received. That was the whole point, she supposed, so that the professor couldn't find Magneto's little lair and they didn't all have to wear helmets all the time.

Zelena had called the school a petting zoo, but Regina felt far more encaged here, in the dark, underground. She wondered what everyone back at the school was doing. It was the middle of the night, so probably all sleeping. Unless they were out looking for her. She hadn’t exactly left a note, she’d just made the decision and gone before she could second guess herself. That was a very bad idea. She needed to find a phone and call them, let them know that she was ok, but that would entail actually finding a phone. Her cell had no signal down here, and if there was one thing that Regina had learned pretty early on it was that wanted men did not install phones in their hiding places. At least they did install fridges, which was why she was currently sitting on top of said fridge in the little kitchenette, eating a bowl of cereal and wondering what the best way of getting out without anyone noticing was.

Had she known that she was going to be led straight into Magneto’s lair, she would not have gone with Zelena, and Regina leaned her head back against the cold tiled wall, closing her eyes with a groan and cursing her own short-sightedness. Of course it was Magneto. Who else would it have been? Someone whose views were so diametrically opposed to the professor’s, someone who thought that mutants needed to exercise their genetic superiority over humans… It could only have been him, but the ideas that Zelena had presented had been so tempting at the time, for a sixteen-year-old still discovering her true self and trying to find her place in a world that did not appear to have one for her. It had seemed like the perfect solution, until she had arrived.

_“Ah, Zelena, I see you’ve brought our newest recruit.”_

_Regina had never heard the voice before, but she knew immediately who he belonged to, and as the man himself came into sight, she shook her head._

_“No, please, this was a big mistake… I just want to go home.”_

_“You’re one of us now, my dear,” Magneto said. “You wanted to learn the best way of using your powers, didn’t you? There’s no better opportunity than the one you’ll find here, I can assure you.”_

_Zelena smirked at her, and in the background, hidden in the shadows, a pair of yellow eyes in a dark blue face narrowed, observing the scene and the interaction between the characters with interest. Regina shuddered, not at the woman’s unusual appearance but at the sensation of being watched so closely._

_“See, Sis. I told you.”_

_But suddenly, to Regina, using her powers did not seem like a good thing at all._

_“I want to go home,” she repeated._

_“This is home now,” Zelena said coolly. “You’ve already made that choice. You can’t go back now. Do you really think they’ll take you back after you’ve betrayed them like this?”_

Regina felt sick remembering the words, and she spat her mouthful of cereal back into the bowl. She was hungry, but she had no desire to actually eat, not whilst she was still here with her stomach churning itself into knots.

“Are you all right?”

Regina looked up to see her sister peering around the corner into the little kitchenette area. For the first time there was no sign of any glee in her eyes, and she looked to be genuinely concerned.

“No,” she replied plainly. “I’m not all right. I want to go home, back to the school. Please…” _They’re my family_ , she wanted to say, but she couldn’t say that to Zelena, who really was family. “They’re my friends.”

Zelena said nothing for a long time.

“I understand,” she said eventually. “They’re like family to you.”

“I…”

“It’s true, isn’t it?”

Regina nodded slowly. “Don’t be mad, please?”

Zelena shrugged. “I’m not mad. Kind of disappointed, but not mad. I waited a long time to find you again. But we’re very different people, I think that’s clear to see.”

Regina turned her head on one side, putting down the cereal and watching her sister closely.

“Four-three-eight-seven-two,” Zelena said presently. “That’ll get you through the doors and outside. I’ll cover for you.”

Regina shook her head.

“You’re not Zelena,” she said. “I don’t know what you’re playing at, but you’re not Zelena. I’ve not known Zelena very long, but she’s never shown any kind of sisterly concern like this. This is not Zelena at all.”

Zelena’s eyes flashed yellow for a moment, then scales rippled over her appearance till Mystique was standing in front of her.

“You’ve got to get out,” the older woman said plainly. “You’re not one of us and you’re too young for what we do. You made a stupid, impulsive decision and you’re regretting it. So do everyone a favour, and go.”

Regina slipped off the fridge, taking a few steps towards Mystique cautiously, not trusting the blue woman in the slightest.

“Why are you helping me?” she asked. “Surely, if he didn’t want me here, he’d tell me so himself?”

“There are more of us here than just Erik,” Mystique said. “And I’m helping you because once upon a time I made exactly the same decision you did. But I was older than you, and I knew what I was getting into. Give it a couple of years, finish up with Charles and his precious X-Men, then if you want to come back, well, we know how to find you. But for everyone’s sake, just leave. You can’t handle this, you know you can’t.”

“I don’t trust you.”

“Of course you don’t,” Mystique snapped. “Why would you? It’s not like you trusted your wildly unstable sister not to plunge you in at the deep end.”

Regina winced at the barb, but she stood her ground.

“How do I know that this isn’t some kind of… weird mind game that you’re playing with me?”

“You don’t. That’s a chance you’re going to have to take. But you already took a pretty big chance in blindly trusting a woman you’d only met the day before who turned up claiming to be your sister, so I think you can take a chance on someone who’s trying to help get you out of the mess you got yourself into.”

Regina nodded, and made to leave the room, but before she could get past Mystique and make her way towards the corridors that would lead out of the cavern and up to the open surface, Magneto came around the corner.

“There you are,” he said, addressing Regina. “I’ve been looking for you. It’s time to start your journey of discovery, my dear.”

Regina exchanged a glance with Mystique, but the older woman’s face was unreadable, like it always was.

“Come with me; I think we have something that you’ll find most enlightening.”

She had no choice, really; she could try to make a run for it but in a room that was ninety per cent metal that was probably not going to be a viable option. She took a deep breath, and followed the man out of the room, along the darkened corridors, further down into the cavern. Experimentally she reached up and touched one of the panels on the ceiling.

“Don’t,” Magneto said without turning around. “It’s taken a lot of time and resources to make this place a safe haven, I’d rather not jeopardise it just yet.”

Regina kept her hands to herself, and watched the man in front of her open the heavy vault doors they had stopped in front of with a simple wave of his hand.

“Come on in,” he said, indicating for Regina and Mystique to follow him.

There was a man in the cell, tied to a chair and gagged. He was quite clearly terrified, and for a moment, Regina’s heart went out to him.

“Mr Jones,” Magneto began. “You went out to hunt us down, but instead ended up hunted yourself. How ironic. Have you got anything to say for yourself?”

The man shook his head, whimpering against the gag, and Regina shrank back.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Experimenting,” Magneto said simply. “Mr Jones, here, is a bounty hunter. Isn’t that right, Mr Jones?”

The man shook his head again, but Magneto raised an eyebrow and a chunk of metal flew across the room and knocked him upside the face, and the captive nodded.

“And Mr Jones’ quarry is mutants, isn’t it Mr Jones?” The man nodded. “Mutants that he takes to the genetics labs that no-one is supposed to know about, mutants who are then experimented on. Cut up. Injected. Dissected like lab rats. So, in the spirit of reciprocity, we’re going to do some experimentation on Mr Jones. Regina…”

Regina felt panic began to coat the back of her throat. She knew what was going to happen next, but it was like in a bad dream; she was powerless to stop it.

“Your gift is a unique one. How far have you pushed it? Would you like to experiment a little further?”

“No, I’m good, honestly,” she squeaked.

Mystique sidled around the room to the chair, untying the man’s gag. He flexed his jaw before speaking.

“You’re going to regret this,” he said, but there was no power behind the words; just a last, desperate show of posturing from a man who knew that he was about to die and could do nothing to stop it.

“No, Mr Jones, I am not,” Magneto replied, his voice matter of fact. “You’re going to regret this, and your colleagues and employers will very soon be regretting this, but I am not. Still, we’re wasting valuable time. Your gift, Regina. How long does it take to work, usually? Is it instantaneous?”

Regina nodded.

“I wonder how long it would take to work without a catalyst. Regina, here,” Magneto began again, addressing the man in the chair. It was only now that Regina noticed that he only had one hand. “She has a very interesting gift. She speeds up natural decay. Shall we see how long it takes her to destroy you from the inside out? Open wide, Mr Jones.”

He was holding a small piece of bread, and Jones whimpered pitifully threw his nose as Mystique forced his jaws apart, allowing Magneto to place the bread on his tongue.

“The stage is yours, my dear,” he said, stepping off to one side to allow Regina to come in closer.

She knew what she was expected to do. He wanted her to decay the bread and just keep going, extending her powers through proxy to the rest of his cells. She couldn’t kill through touch, not like Rogue, but there was always the possibility that if she got enough access to someone’s saliva… saliva that was now dripping in gloopy strings from Jones’ open mouth… then the bacterial decay could transfer across.

“I can’t,” she said. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”

“Your friends and family, all shut up safe at the school…” Zelena had entered. “They might all be dead now thanks to his kind.”

Regina shook her head. “I can’t do it! I can’t just kill someone!”

“Yet he’d have no qualms in sending you to your death,” Magneto said calmly. “You do not owe these people anything, and they certainly do not deserve your mercy.”

“I can’t kill him,” Regina repeated. She could feel tears prickling at the back of her eyelids and although she was determined not to cry in front of them, not to cement her status to Mystique as the young one so completely out of her depth, she could not help but sob in fear, not for the fate of the man in the chair but for her own.

“Very well, Mr Jones, it appears that you have earned yourself a brief reprieve. Sadly, we can’t let you wander free, since that would derail our own plans somewhat. We’re going to have to keep you out of the picture. Mystique, why don’t you show our youngest comrade how it’s done?”

Mystique smiled and let go of Jones’ head, coming round to face him again. Her scales rippled until she took his form.

Things started to come together in Regina’s mind. The picture was still piecemeal, but it was becoming clearer now. This wasn’t just a training exercise to get Regina using her powers for murderous ends. This was all part of a much bigger plan, one that Regina was inherently afraid of.

Before Regina had realised what was going on, Mystique, in Jones’ form, had reached out, grabbed his head and twisted, neatly breaking his neck and killing him. Regina screamed, before pressing her hands over her mouth to silence herself. As Mystique rippled back to her natural form, she shot Regina a look that said, quite clearly, _I told you that you weren’t ready for this_.

It was almost sympathetic.

Regina felt sick, physically sick; she was going to vomit if she didn’t get out of this cell with this dead man and these ruthless people. Zelena rolled her eyes and stood back to let her rush past, and the heavy door swung open just in time for her to rush through it, running blindly along the corridors until she was back in the kitchenette area, throwing up the cereal that she had forced down earlier into the sink. She did not hold her tears back now, crying loudly and snottily as she rested her forehead against the cold stainless steel surround. Everything was cold here. Cold and bleak and unforgiving, just like Magneto and Mystique and Zelena, and anyone else who made this cavern their base of operations. Just because she had not seen anyone else did not mean that they were not out there, fighting Magneto’s cause for him.

A creeping, insidious thought wormed its way into her brain. Perhaps Zelena was right, she was just weak; she just needed to toughen up a bit. After all, they were on the same side, weren’t they? They were fighting against people who hated mutants, just like the professor spoke out against them. Their goals were the same.

Except they weren’t. The professor strove for harmony and co-existence. Magneto was of the firm belief that co-existence was impossible and a futile dream; domination was the only way forward. They faced a common enemy, but their ways of dealing with that enemy were very different. Perhaps, in a few years’ time, when she’d had more experience of the world, she would agree with a more action-based line of thinking. Perhaps five years down the line, like Mystique had said, she’d be back in this bleak bunker and she wouldn’t hesitate to use her powers to kill and destroy.

But right now, she had no desire to do that. She already thought of herself as an outcast, a freak, and she was trying to change that perception, both in her own eyes and in the eyes of others. How could she possibly feel any better about herself if she added ‘murderer’ to the ever-growing list of appellations? And what about her friends… They would certainly never forgive her… Rogue especially… There was never going to be victory like this. All this would do would make the humans fear their kind even more than they already did, and Regina had had enough of being feared already in her short life.

She had to get out. Mystique had practically handed her a ticket out of here on a plate, and whether she trusted the older woman or not, she had to take that chance. There was no-one about; the others had not come up out of the vault yet. She had a few minutes in which she could grab her things and flee. She didn’t know where she would go; she couldn’t exactly go back to the school with her tail between her legs now, but she would figure that out once she got up to the surface. Maybe she could get to New York City; people could vanish nicely in there and it was so cosmopolitan that no-one would notice anything strange about her. Of course, the fact that she had no money would prove problematic, but desperate times called for desperate measures and she was sure that a friendly bus driver would take pity on her somewhere along the line.

Rinsing out the sink and taking a couple of mouthfuls of water, Regina’s mind cast itself, unbidden, back over the events of the past few minutes, and in a cold rush of dread everything began to fall into place. The captured hunter, Mystique taking his face… She knew what they were planning and what mission they had hoped to train her for. Or at least, she could take a guess at it. So here was where the ultimate dilemma lay. Action or inaction? Should she leave them all to their fates or do the responsible thing and let someone know of the dangers on the horizon? Letting someone know meant getting back in touch with the school, and she had already established that she couldn’t do that.

Maybe she could call them. Whilst she might not have enough for a bus to the city, she did have enough money for a payphone. Just leave a message, let them deal with the fallout, and move on. That seemed like the best option.

Regina grabbed her bag and moved through the cavern towards the heavy metal door that kept them safe from Cerebro’s gaze. Four-three-eight-seven-two. She could do this.

She had only punched in the first two digits when a violent whirlwind from behind her knocked her off balance and she was forced to grab hold of the door handle to stop herself from being blown over.

“Where do you think you’re going, Sis?” Zelena asked.

“Away.”

“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, dear.” Her sister came over and hit the electronic keypad to lock it down again. “You see, you know too much. So, you’re either with us, or you meet the same fate as that poor unfortunate sod downstairs. I know Mystique doesn’t think that you’re old enough to be part of our little troupe at the moment, but I was younger than you when I had to make the tough choices, so I don’t see why you get to get off any easier.”

Regina blinked. “Is this about _jealousy_ , Zelena? You want to make me suffer in the same way you did, just so that we’re even? I got kicked out of home as soon as I manifested too, you know. I’m sorry you didn’t land on your feet in the same way I did, but that’s not my fault.”

“I don’t care whether it’s your fault or not,” Zelena snapped. “You have no idea what it was like, leaving you behind, my precious little baby sister who could do no wrong… God I _hated_ you then, and I still hate you now, what you’ve become. If I have to claw my way up to survive in a world that doesn’t care a toss about me then you damn well have to as well! So make no mistake, Sis, you’re staying here and you’re doing as you’re told.”

She grabbed Regina’s arm and made to force her back towards the centre of the main room, but Regina shook her head, and wrenched her arm out of her sister’s grasp, bringing her other hand across in a wild swing for the older woman’s nose, the extra momentum from the weight of her back pack giving her a powerful strike. Zelena’s nose was bleeding, thick dark red dripping down into her mouth, and her eyes flashed with anger.

“Little bitch!” she snarled, and she opened one palm whilst the other dabbed cautiously at her septum. Regina could see the beginnings of what was going to be a very major tornado forming in her hand, and Regina knew what happened to small, squishy humans when caught in rather large tornadoes. In her desperation, Regina did the only thing in self-defence that she could think of.

Yanking off her gloves, she rushed her sister, knocking her to the ground and smothering her face with her hands; the blood still gushing from her nose into her mouth turning black and coagulated, oozing and sticky like tar. Struggling against the assault, Zelena tried to spit out the disgusting fluid, but it was too late; she was already choking on it.

Regina jumped back to her feet, keyed in the code to the door and hurled herself through it as soon as the gap was wide enough, leaving Zelena gagging and writhing on the floor, poisoned by her own blood. Regina just kept running through the dark tunnels until she reached the surface, stumbling in the fresh fallen snow. It was only when she saw the black and bloody handprints she left in the otherwise unsullied white that the full extent of what she had done really sunk in. Zelena might be dead right now; only a few short minutes after Regina had cried that she couldn’t and wouldn’t kill. But this had been in self-defence, in a desperation to get out of the madness and warn the others of the further bloodshed that was about to occur. Surely that made it… not ok, but at least justifiable? Perhaps? Or was she really no better than those she had just left?

Regina stared down at her hands and screamed, the sound echoing through the deserted streets.

 


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter Fifteen**

Belle didn’t think that she had ever heard the school so quiet. She was sitting at the front of the classroom supervising Ruby’s usual Monday morning science class as they wrote their quiz, and she could have heard a pin drop. Even though she expected the quiet from the students in front of her, she had not expected the rest of the house to be quite so silent. It was a mark of just how much the absence of one of their number had affected them. The institute had a lot of students, but they were still few enough in number that they all knew each other, and gossip spread like wildfire throughout all ages and friendship groups. The night had passed and Regina had still not returned, with still no sign of where she might have got to. This was serious now, and people were beginning to worry. Belle sighed, wishing that there was something she could do. Ruby, Logan and Scott had gone back out to Albany to see if there was anything that they could find out there, where Regina’s scent had last been noticed. The professor was talking to Hank in between sessions in Cerebro, still sweeping the area for any sign of Regina’s thought patterns. Rum’s latest revelations were cause for more than concern, and whilst he could not find Regina, the professor still needed to know that he was doing something worthwhile and beneficial for their cause.

Maybe… The professor had forbidden her from using Cerebro to perform memory sweeps, but surely if she were to just go in and take a peep, just an ordinary sweep of the area like the professor did… Belle remembered the last time she had used Cerebro, last year when they were looking for Rogue and the professor had been indisposed. The ringing in her ears from the sheer volume of the thoughts of every single person in the world had taken over a week to go away, and the professor had been right, as blunt as the words were – it had nearly given her a stroke. But she was stronger now, prepared for the effects and for that rush of billions upon billions of thoughts invading her own.

_Belle, don’t you dare._

The professor’s voice was sharp and stern in her head.

_If you want to use Cerebro, I want to be there to make sure everything is all right._

Belle looked over at the door in the direction of the professor’s office.

_So you’ll let me use it?_

_Under supervision, yes,_ he replied. _I do not doubt your powers, Belle, nor your ability to control them. I just value you too much to let anything untoward happen to you. But yes, you can use Cerebro. Everyone’s brain waves are different, including yours and mine. Perhaps Cerebro can help you to pick up something that I missed._

_I’m coming as soon as this class is over._

She had felt it just as she was dropping off to sleep in the early hours of the morning, the briefest of little touches against her mind, incredibly faint, like someone communicating through a very thick wall, and it was not so much a thought that she had heard as an impression she had received, a tactile one, like someone pressing with the very ends of the fingertips against the inside of her skull. And she had been sure that it had been Regina, although as soon as the sensation had begun, it was over, leaving no trace, no thought pattern that she could use to identify it. Maybe Cerebro would help.

The bell rang and the students began to pack their things away, leaving the quizzes on the front desk ready for Belle to hand over to Ruby for marking. She’d do it herself, but science was not Belle’s forte; she stuck firmly to English and History, with the occasional bit of maths. Considering that their staff was made almost entirely of bits and pieces, the students still had a remarkably well-rounded curriculum, with everyone teaching what they knew. The professor, as well read as he was, dabbled in pretty much everything but always came back to biology; Ruby and Jean were the scientifically and mathematically minded ones, Belle and Storm the more artistic, and Scott the practical, mechanical mind. Even Marco helped out; cooking lessons were always a highlight however intermittently they might come.

With all the students gone, Belle made her way through the school towards the lower levels. It was always something of a shock, coming from the classic antique surroundings of the main house into the clean, clinical technical areas, but Belle was used to the transition now, and she strode towards Cerebro at the end of the corridor with determination. She was going to find Regina; she was so certain that the touch she’d felt earlier had been her. The professor was waiting outside the open door when she got there, and he held out a hand, indicating for her to enter first. There was not a lot of room within the space for maneuvering once they were in, so it made sense for her to go first rather than having to get past his wheelchair.

“After you.”

Belle entered the globe and stepped a little nervously down the platform to Cerebro’s controls. Now that she was here, she could only remember the last time she had used the machine, and the results. She took a deep breath. She could do this. Mind over matter.

She knelt down in front of the console and turned it on, watching the panels in the walls come to life, awaiting the instruction of her brain waves, and she looked back over her shoulder at the professor, who was right behind her on the platform, ready to take over if needs be. He gave an encouraging smile and nod, and Belle turned back towards the screens surrounding her, carefully placing the helmet over her head. It was designed for the professor and did not fit her brilliantly, but it would do.

As soon as the nodes touched against her skin, the rush of voices in her head began, almost overwhelming her, and she had to grab hold of the console with both hands as the mental map began to appear on the walls. The visual helped her to focus, and she homed in on North America, and on the bright red lights that were popping up all over the Atlantic coastline.

“Start here,” the professor’s voice said in her ears; he sounded incredibly far away over the incoherent babble of millions of mental signatures that her brain was trying desperately to separate out into individual trains of thought. “Start at the house and work outwards. Grab a familiar train and hold onto it, like a lifeline. Find me. Focus on me.”

 _Focus on me_.

She heard the professor’s mental voice clearly in the back of her mind and locked onto it, clinging to him. Immediately the rush of thoughts became easier to control now that she was only concentrating on one. The rest, although far more distracting than regular background noise, were fading.

“Now push out. Filter through the nearby voices until something jumps out at you. Keep Regina in your mind, it will be easier to recognise her she’s already foremost in your mind.”

Belle closed her eyes, focussing on the image of Regina as she had last seen her, sitting at the breakfast table on the morning of her disappearance, and she began to paw through the consciousnesses in the immediate vicinity, focussing only on the mutants. Once she had got past the boundaries of the school, it became easier – there was less of a concentration of mutant minds in one place.

“Careful,” the professor said, his tone a warning one. “Don’t concentrate too hard on the genetic coding. You’ll still be able to pick up Regina even if a few human minds cross your path.”

Belle’s head was beginning to throb, and she had only been doing this for less than a minute. She left Salem and moved onto the surrounding towns, pushing out towards Albany, sweeping through the brains there with barely a touch in each one, scarcely able to concentrate.

And then she felt it, the memory of that little touch in the back of her mind from the early hours of the morning.

“Belle.” The professor was hailing her, but she was too focussed on that little touch, matching it up to the brain waves in the area, thinking about Regina the whole time. Spots were forming in front of her eyes; she recognised the symptoms, but she had to press on. “Belle!”

 _Regina!_ Belle pushed out the thought with all her might. _Regina, where are you?_

_Belle!_

She’d found her. Against all the odds, it was the faintest little signature, and Belle grabbed it, letting go of the professor’s mind in order to clamp down on Regina’s trying to find her. That was a mistake. It was only once she had let go that she realised just how much he was keeping her stable, and without his calming influence in the back of her head, she felt like she was in freefall, clinging to Regina but both of them going down together. Without that link back to the house, she was getting rapidly lost in North America. She managed to focus on the screens, but the lights were starting to hurt her eyes.

“She’s in Albany,” she croaked. “They’re close.”

“Belle, stop, please. They can find her from there.”

_Belle, help, please…_

Regina, wherever she was, was absolutely terrified. Belle could not hold on much longer, but she couldn’t let go of Regina whilst she was so terribly scared.

_I’m here, sweetheart, where are you?_

_I don’t know… Please come…_

The connection was suddenly lost and the lights went out, and Belle realised that the professor had grabbed the helmet off her head.

“Enough,” he said, gently but firmly, brokering no arguments. Belle looked down to see blood splattered over the console in front of her and she brought a hand to her nose. “You’ve done so well, Belle, and I’m incredibly proud of you, but my word, you’re stubborn.” He reached out and touched her cheek, wiping away tears that Belle hadn’t even noticed had begun to fall. “You weren’t going to give up even if it killed you.”

“She’s really scared,” Belle croaked. “I was in her head, she’s terrified, Professor, you’ve got to get back in her head; I clocked out so suddenly…”

“I want to make sure that you’re not going to collapse first. She’s in Albany and she’s not moving. I’ll be able to find her again. She must only just have become visible again.”

Belle sank down beneath the console, resting her head against it. “I’ll be fine. Just need a little rest.”

Unconvinced, the professor held out a handkerchief for her nose before donning the helmet himself. Belle closed her eyes against the glare of the lights, but despite the throbbing pain in her temples, she smiled. She had found Regina. Everything was going to be all right.

X

As soon as everyone was awake the next morning - perhaps slightly later than they would have been had they not spent so much of the night awake - Ruby and Scott set off for Albany again to continue their search, Logan travelling with them. It would have been an interesting journey had their circumstances not been so tense; and Ruby was privately glad that they had the common goal of finding Regina to stop them from arguing.

So far the professor had not found any trace of her back at the house with Cerebro, and there were no new scent trails, but Ruby had picked up on the sister’s scent and was following it around in what appeared to be circles, with Scott in tow. She felt a little sorry for him, being pulled around for miles upon miles of streets and back alleys on a wild goose chase, in the middle of a thick snowfall. They could really have done with having Storm with them to make the journey a little bit easier.

_Ruby?_

The professor’s voice was sharp and urgent, and it cut through the melancholy train of thought that Ruby had found herself spiralling into.

_Go ahead, Professor._

_We’ve got her. Belle found her._

_Belle used Cerebro? Is she all right?_

_She will be, she’s more concerned with getting Regina home safe and sound. Regina just popped up out of nowhere. She's in Albany, about two miles south of where you are now. Wherever she is, she's underground, looks like a cellar or basement, no natural light._

_Well, that doesn’t narrow it down at all…_

_I’m trying to get a better track on her, I’ll keep you updated._

_Is she ok?_ Ruby asked frantically before yelling for Scott to come over. He jogged across to her, raising an eyebrow.

_She's incredibly shaken and very scared but physically unhurt. I don't want to go too much deeper from here, I'd need her back at the house._

_Ok, we're on it. See you soon._

She clocked out of the connection and smiled at Scott, who was looking at her expectantly with an expression that was equal parts hope and fear.

"She's become visible again, Belle found her. Two miles south of here, the professor says."

Scott let out a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness for that. Let's get going."

They had already wandered miles from where they had left the car and it would have taken them out of their way to go back for it, so they began to run due south, Ruby occasionally stopping to sniff the air. Meanwhile, Scott had called Logan, and the other man was moving towards them, Ruby could sense him coming closer.

"Got her!" she called, veering off to the left down a back alley behind a Chinese restaurant before stopping and breathing deeply, letting her nose guide her to the door in question. "She's in there."

"Is she ok?" Scott asked. “Can you tell from here?”

Ruby concentrated on the sensory stimulation all around her, before finally getting on her hands and knees in the snow by the door, listening closely.

"She's right here, under our feet," she said, and she brushed the snow away from the doorstep before bending as close as she could get her ear to the freezing stone without touching it. "Yes. She's here, I can hear her breathing. Her heart’s pounding, but she sounds all right physically."

“Got her?” Logan’s voice came around the corner and a moment later the man himself came up beside them.

Ruby nodded and looked up at Scott. “Punch it.”

Scott needed no further encouragement to do just that, adjusting the settings on his visor and sending a pulse of light towards the door locks, shattering them. From under them, Ruby heard Regina’s hastily muffled squeal, and she scrambled to her feet as Scott and Logan wrenched the old door open, throwing herself down into the cellar.

“Regina!”

“Ruby!” The younger girl barrelled into Ruby, clamping deceptively strong arms around her and burying her face into her collar. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

“Shh, you’re all right, you’re safe now,” Ruby soothed. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

“Wait,” Regina pulled back in fear, looking at Ruby critically in the light of the open cellar door. “Are you really you?”

“Pardon?” Ruby blinked, then remembered Mystique’s powers of insinuation and cursed the other woman inwardly. “Yes, I’m me, although I’m not quite sure how to prove it to you if you want proof.”

“Everything ok down there?”

Logan and Scott were peering into the cellar, and on seeing them, Regina relaxed and gave a weak smile.

“Ok, you’re you.”

Scott held out a hand to help her up the steps from the cellar, and Ruby followed her up.

“How did you end up in there?” Scott asked as Logan shut the door again, looking at the broken locks and giving a shrug before following the group out of the alleyway; they would be long gone before anyone noticed the damage. It wasn’t as if they had taken anything from the cellar – only something that was not meant to be there in the first place.

“I wanted somewhere warm to hide,” Regina mumbled. “Didn’t mean to get locked in. How did you find me?”

“With difficulty,” Ruby said. “Where were you? We couldn’t find you in Cerebro at all yesterday.”

“It’s… it’s a long story,” Regina said. She sounded utterly defeated. Ruby readjusted her hold on the girl’s shoulders.

“It’s ok, you can take your time. You don’t need to tell us, you can wait and talk to the professor when we get home.”

Regina nodded. “I need to speak to him. I need to warn him… Magneto’s planning something.”

Over the top of Regina’s head, Ruby exchanged looks with Scott and Logan. Not only was that incredibly ominous, it also firmly rooted their suspicions as to where Regina had been and whom she had been with.

“Is Belle here?” Regina asked. “I heard her, just before you arrived, but then it was the professor.”

“No, she’s back at the house. She found you in Cerebro. That must have been what you heard.”

“That must have knocked out her out,” Regina mumbled. There was a tone of guilt in her voice.

“This morning she was certain that she’d felt you touch her mind during the night; she was determined to get into Cerebro and find you,” Ruby said.

Regina was silent.

“I touched the panels,” she murmured eventually. “They looked like Cerebro’s screens; and I touched them…”

Ruby smiled; Regina really had touched Belle’s mind, literally. Beside her, the younger girl sighed.

“I can’t believe I was so stupid. Stupid and naïve.”

“And desperate for family, blood family,” Ruby said quietly. They had fallen a little behind Scott and Logan, out of earshot. “Whatever happened and whatever your opinions of your sister are now, Regina, I want you to be assured that she really was your sister; it wasn’t a trick that you fell for blindly. I can tell from her scent; you’re related.”

Regina nodded. “That makes me feel a bit better, thanks.”

“It’s all over, sweetheart,” Ruby said. “It’s in the past.”

Regina nodded and they continued to make their way back towards the car. Sitting in the backseat with Regina dozing against her shoulder, Ruby looked out of the window, watching the buildings of Albany slide by. She wondered just what it was that Regina had to warn the professor about, and what terrors Magneto was planning this time. Would they be able to intercept him in time?


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter Sixteen**

Lessons had been suspended for the day and the staff were gathered in the professor's office, including Belle, much to Jean's protests that she needed to spend the rest of the day lying down after her exploits. Belle had countered her argument by saying that if she had to lie down, so did Jean, who had developed a streaming cold over the last couple of days and was sitting wrapped up in fluffy cardigans with a box of tissues on her lap as they listened to the professor's urgent update.

After Regina had been safely returned to the school and had a hot bath and a meal that was more substantial than breakfast cereal (Belle would always be privately amused that Magneto and his cohorts appeared to live off breakfast cereal), she had spent a long time sequestered with the professor, telling him everything that she had seen and heard in her time away from the school.

Once everyone was assembled, the professor began his speech with a heavy sigh.

“Piecing everything together, we have a fairly solid idea of what Magneto is planning to do, and where this attack is going to take place. There is a chemical research laboratory in Storybrooke, Maine. It appears from the evidence we already have from Belle and from Rum and Bae Gold and Diana Lucas, that this laboratory uses live mutants as test subjects, and they use bounty hunters to track them down. Magneto had captured one of these hunters and Mystique will be taking on his identity, no doubt to gain access to the labs. The hunter that they caught is one of the ones that came after Rum and Bae, I recognised him from their memories, which links them back to Storybrooke.”

“Magneto’s going to attack the lab,” Scott said flatly, and the professor nodded.

“I would say “let him”,” Logan growled, “but I know that won’t do well in the long term.”

The professor gave another long sigh. “I know that it is not easy to take a stand against something that we ourselves would in any other circumstances wish to support. But we cannot be made into the enemy here. I want to see this abominable place shut down as much as anyone else, but if these things happen in the way Erik wants them to, then nothing will get done. The more they raze, the more the scientists will rebuild, and the more they will take us as unsuspecting victims. Acts of terror will not make anyone sympathetic to our cause.”

“Besides, there will be innocents in that building,” Ruby said quietly. “There’ll be other mutants there, and people who have no idea what’s going on beneath their feet. Magneto doesn’t care about collateral damage as long as he achieves his goal; we already know that from when he took Rogue last year. We can’t let him take innocent lives because they happen to be in the way.”

“We can still bring these people to justice,” the professor said. “As soon as this briefing is over I’m heading out to meet Hank so that we can begin the necessary legal proceedings, but we have to stop Magneto or we will not have a leg to stand on, and things will only get worse.”

“Do we know how many we might be dealing with?” Logan asked. The professor shook his head.

“Regina only saw a small number. Just Magneto, Mystique, and her sister Zelena, but she’s not sure if Zelena will be with them.”

Belle remained tight-lipped on the subject; it was the nicest and most euphemistic way of saying that Regina did not know if she had killed the older woman or not. Although Belle had not read Regina’s mind in the same way that the professor had since she had returned to the school, she’d received enough of an impression from her time in Cerebro to know what was praying on the girl’s mind.

“There may well be other allies outside their base in Albany, but it seems unlikely,” the professor continued. “It does not look like a large operation, but then again, they were only four before and they were more than capable. It never pays to underestimate Erik, that’s a lesson that I learned long ago.”

“So we just have to ward him off. Might be easier said than done in a place full of scientists who want to cut us up and experiment on us,” Logan said drily.

“We can do it,” Ruby said. “It’ll be difficult, but nothing is impossible.”

“I’d like you all to go, apart from Jean,” the professor said. Jean opened her mouth to protest but then had to close it again when she sneezed. “Marco will remain here too, obviously, and I am sure that Rum can be called upon should any emergency arise.”

Belle nodded. “He might not be particularly extroverted but he gets on ok with the kids.”

“We’ll certainly have a fight on our hands,” Scott said. “It would make sense to have as many skills in the team as possible.”

“Whatever happens,” Ruby said pointedly, “we’re getting out any prisoners. I won’t leave them there in the name of diplomacy and legality.”

“Of course,” the professor replied. “That goes without saying. Just with as few casualties as possible.”

Ruby nodded, satisfied with that answer. If anyone could find captives, it would be her.

“I’ll go and get the jet ready,” Storm said, standing and making to leave the room. “What time is your taxi coming, Professor?”

The older man checked his watch. “Fifteen minutes.” He looked around the gathered adults again. “Good luck. I know I can count on you to do this calmly and cleanly.”

The meeting dispersed in dribs and drabs until only Ruby and Belle remained in the professor’s office. Ruby gave a long, heartfelt sigh.

“Back to Storybrooke,” she said. “Funny how everything seems to come back to there. You and I both came from there, Rum and Bae, and now the labs… Do you ever get the feeling that fate is messing with us?”

Belle just gave a huff of laughter. “I don’t think so. Although two trips there in practically as many weeks is more than enough for anyone.”

Ruby didn’t reply; she just stared out of the window at the sunlight sparkling off the freshly fallen snow on the basketball courts outside. They’d have to brush that away before the Bluebird came out.

“I’m worried,” she said plainly. “What are we going to find there, Belle? What horrific things are they going to have done to our kind? What if we get there and it’s all so horrible that all I want to do is tear their throats out?”

“Ruby, you have never killed anyone in your life before,” Belle said firmly. “And you’re not going to start today, I can guarantee it.” She didn’t have to look into her friend’s mind to get a handle on the whirling myriad of increasingly worried thoughts that were flitting around in her head; Ruby’s voice was as clear as day.

 _It’s going to be all right_ , Belle said. _No matter what horrors they have committed, focus on the fact that we’re going to help, and they won’t hurt anyone else._

Ruby gave a weak smile. “You’re right,” she said with a sigh. “You always are.”

“Not always,” Belle pointed out lightly. “In fact, very rarely.”

The two friends fell into a companionable silence again before Ruby spoke again, her words sudden and staccato, trying to get them out without having to actually say them, but knowing that saying them would bring some kind of relief and catharsis.

“Belle, what happens if they capture us?”

Belle didn’t reply. She’d been trying not to think about that terrifying possibility, and she supposed that her and Ruby’s reactions would be very different. Having spent so much time caged in her youth, and having pushed her gift so incredibly far in order to avoid the fate that Ruby feared, Belle knew what would happen if she were to be caught. She’d fight with all her mental might, and the struggle might possibly kill her, but the thought did not bring her quite as much fear as it might have done, because she was so defiantly certain that she was not going to allow herself to be experimented on that no version of reality existed where it happened. Death before vivisection. For Ruby, who had never been locked up and had only ever lived with the fear of it, the worry was different – more potent and insidious. Having already been subjected to something, there was little fear of it on Belle’s part.

Belle shook her head.

“It’s not going to happen, Ruby,” she said firmly. “We are all getting out in one piece.”

Ruby smiled weakly.

“Ok. I’ll take your word for it. Let’s go and suit up.”

X

Bae reached out in front of him and concentrated all his might on imagining the TV room downstairs. His gift was still somewhat haphazard, but he was getting there with it, slowly. It was much easier to open portals to places that he could already see than trying to get to somewhere that he had to visualise, but any progress was good progress. He opened his eyes and found himself looking at Emma, who was sitting on the sofa in front of the TV. She grinned and waved at him.

“You’re getting a lot better at this,” she said, and paused. “Can I come through?”

Bae shrugged. “Don’t see why not.”

She stood and came over to the portal, looking at it in awe then moving out of sight, presumably having gone around the back of it, then she appeared in view again.

“This is really cool,” she said before daintily stepping through the portal, which snapped closed behind her. “How far away do you think you can go?”

Bae sat back on his bed and shrugged. “Not too far. Not like, to China or something. And I have to know where I’m going, or at least have a picture of it in my head.”

“Your power is really _useful_ ,” Emma lamented. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s good to know when people are lying to me, but it doesn’t really help much, and my telepathy isn’t strong enough to be really helpful yet. It just feels like static most of the time, unless I’m somewhere with loads of people. But yours is really cool.” She laughed. “Honestly, when people start realising just what it is you can do, you’re going to be everyone’s best friend. You can get into the kitchen without leaving your room. Marco will never know who’s been taking his baking right off the plate without him seeing it.”

Bae raised an eyebrow at the suggestion; he was sure that it would not work quite that smoothly, but the thought did make him smile.

“Do you think…” Emma began, then she tailed off. “I just want to know that Regina’s ok.”

“I thought you didn’t like Regina,” Bae pointed out. “You argue all the time.”

“Yeah, but there’s a difference between not getting on with her and actively wanting her to be hurt or traumatised,” Emma said. She sighed. “I really just want to know why she ran away. I know Storm said that it didn’t matter last night, but I still want to know. We argue all the time but if our arguing was what caused her to run away and get into danger then… I don’t know.”

“Well, my dad and my teachers always used to say that it takes two to tango,” Bae said, his voice matter of fact. “When I used to get in trouble at school for fighting, I would always say that it was the other person’s fault, that they started it, and my teachers would always say that: takes two to tango. And when my dad and my aunties used to try and make the teachers do something about the bullies, that was what they always used to say: takes two to tango. So even if Regina did run away because of your arguments, she made that choice to run away, so I don’t think that you can completely blame yourself.”

Emma nodded. “Thanks Bae. That makes me feel better.”

“But what’s up with this Magneto guy anyway?” Bae asked. “If he’s a mutant, like us, why was everyone so worried about Regina ending up with him? I’d be more worried about her being taken by hunters.”

“I was worried about that too,” Emma admitted, “but the reasons for being worried about Magneto go way back, and from the amount of time that Regina’s been talking to the professor, it would see that we’ve got even more reason to worry about him.”

“What are we worried about?” Bae pressed. If something bad was on the horizon, then he wanted to know what they might be going up against.

“It’s a long story,” Emma said.

Bae shrugged. “We’ve got time.”

Emma began to tell the tale of everything that had happened the previous year, with Rogue and Mystique and the professor and Liberty Island, and Bae’s eyes widened as he listened, taking it all in.

“Well, I can see why you’d be worried about him,” he said faintly once she had reached the end of the tale. “Do you think he might be planning something now?”

Emma nodded. “I don’t see any reason why Regina would have so much to tell the professor if he wasn’t. I just hope he doesn’t come back here.” She paused, leaning back on Bae’s bed and staring up at the ceiling. “Despite everything that’s happened, I’ve always felt safe here. But if something else were to happen, then I don’t think I would feel as safe. And that would not be pleasant, as I’ve got nowhere else to go, nowhere else where I can run to.”

“I’m sure everything will be fine,” Bae said, although he had absolutely no way of knowing that for certain and he could speak with no great conviction. “I’m sure the professor will sort it all out.”

Emma nodded. “Yeah, he’s good at that.”

There was a timid knock at the door, and Bae’s brow furrowed, wondering who it could be. The only person he could think of who would want his attention would be his dad, who didn’t knock like that.

“Come in?”

The door opened slowly and Regina’s head peered around it. She was looking a little sheepish.

“Theresa said she thought she heard you in here,” she said. “I just wanted to come and say hi. Now that I’m, you know, back.” She paused. “Belle said you were worried about why I’d gone.”

Emma nodded.

“Don’t worry, it wasn’t you,” Regina said.

There was a long moment of silence then as a heavy stare passed between the two girls; Emma with her head tilted on one side as she tested the truth of Regina’s words and finally gave a nod.

“Thank you,” she said. “That’s good to know.”

“That’s not to say that we’re not going to be tearing each other’s heads off at dinner,” Regina added hastily. They were not friends, that had to be re-established. Her brief time away from the school had not given her any kind of sudden enlightenment.

“Oh, I look forward to it,” Emma said with a grin.

“I just didn’t want you to be worried that you’d somehow made me leave.” Regina paused. “It was my sister. I wanted to be with my sister. But to be honest, as annoying as you are, I’d take you as a sister over her any day.”

Emma laughed. “That bad, huh? Wow.”

Regina smiled, and it was clear that a temporary truce had been reached between the two girls. Nothing more was said for a few minutes, and the silence began to become awkward.

“Well, see you around.”

Regina left the room as suddenly as she had arrived, and Bae looked across at Emma.

“I think you two get along much better than you want to admit,” he said sagely. Emma just rolled her eyes.

“Come on, try portalling to the kitchen. I want to find out what’s for dinner.”

X

Belle was surprised to see Rum standing in the jet hangar when she left the changing area. He was leaning heavily on the crutch that he used to get about, and staring up at the Bluebird with awe.

“I never got to see it when I came here,” he said as Belle came up beside him. “It’s an impressive thing, I’ll give you that.”

“A little ostentatious, but she gets the job done,” Belle said. The Bluebird had saved her life, and Rum’s, and she honestly did not know where they would all be without the jet; it served as a lifeline and first contact with the school for so many of them. “She’s done us proud. Scott keeps modifying her to keep her shipshape.”

Rum nodded slowly. “I just hope that when I next see her, she’s still in one piece and has her full complement of passengers,” he said pointedly. Belle turned to him, wanting desperately to know what he was thinking but knowing better than to go looking in his head unannounced.

“Please be safe,” he said simply. “You’ve done so much for us, I couldn’t bear it if you were harmed.”

Belle smiled. “I’ll be careful,” she said. “I promise. After all, I still haven’t shown you the roof yet.”

Rum laughed. “I’m holding you to that, you know,” he said. “Just… be safe. All of you.”

“This isn’t the first time we’ve done this,” Belle said, “but you’re right. We shouldn’t get complacent just because we’ve faced the man before.”

“I’m not worried about the mutants, I’m worried about the humans.” Rum paused. “Are you sure this is the right thing to do? These people… They’re not good people, Belle. Are you sure you want to help them?”

Belle sighed.

“There’s a difference between what is right, and what is easy, and what we think we ought to do… It’s a fine line… But part of being a hero is helping people even if they don’t appreciate what you’re doing for them. I just take comfort from the fact that whatever happens, I know I did the right thing. And there might be other mutants there, others like us who haven’t been as lucky as we have, and who need our help. If I get disheartened, then I just have to think of them. I’m doing this for them, not for any of the humans.”

“Your grace and kindness are incredible,” Rum said softly. “I don’t think I could be so compassionate if I were in your position, if I’d had the same experiences as you.”

“You’re a good man, Rum. It’s not easy to make the tough choices, of course not, but if you do the right thing, the brave thing, then the bravery will follow, and you’ll know that you’ve done something good in this world. I can’t let myself stoop to their level. I don’t want to be anything like them.”

“Oh, you’re not,” Rum said. “Not at all.”

“Am I interrupting something?”

Logan had entered the hangar and was watching the two of them with a raised eyebrow and an amused expression. Rum gave a squawk of alarm and skittered backwards, and Belle just smiled at his reaction.

“Well, I’d best be going,” Belle said.

“Come back in one piece,” Rum whispered.

Belle nodded. “I intend to.”

She climbed aboard the plane and watched as Rum left the hangar, ready for the Bluebird to take off. She had every intention of coming back in one piece; there had never been a time when she hadn’t, but it was nice to know that there was someone waiting for her who wanted her to get back, someone who didn’t even know her that well, but knew her enough to know that he wanted to see her again. In that moment, Belle knew that she wanted to see Rum again, too.

 


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: mentions of vivisection and evidence of medical abuse. If this will be triggering for anyone, I suggest you stop reading after Belle, Ruby and Logan go down into the basement. Please feel free to message me on Tumblr [here](http://worryinglyinnocent.tumblr.com/ask) for a summary of the rest of the chapter.

**Chapter Seventeen**

"So what do we think?"

They had landed the jet under Storm's cloud cover a little way from the lab, and so far there was nothing to see. The lab itself was dark; no signs of life at all.

"It looks ominous," Ruby muttered in response to Scott's question. "And it smells all wrong. There's so many residual chemicals in the air, it's throwing everything off."

"Something's wrong," Logan agreed. "I would have expected to have far more of a fight on our hands."

"Well, according to Regina it's just the three of them," Storm said. “Magneto, Mystique, and possibly Zelena. I know he likes a big show, but perhaps he's going for a stealth mission out of necessity. We already know that they were planning to infiltrate the place under the guise of one of the hunters."

"It's still too quiet," Belle said. "I'd need to get out and have a sweep, but there's not as much background noise as I would expect for a large facility like this."

"It was definitely operational earlier," Scott said. "We could see from the satellite photos."

Ruby raised an eyebrow. "I'm not even going to ask how you managed to hack into government satellites," she said. "Belle's right though, it's way too quiet. Even without people, you'd still expect there to be machinery and operating systems whirring, and there's nothing. To all intents and purposes the place is practically dead."

"I definitely don't like the look of this," Logan said. "I don't even think it's a question of our being too late, I think it's something worse than that."

"Well, the only way that we're going to find out for certain is to go and take a look," Storm pointed out. "Let's get out there, but be on your guard."

"Already am, Storm," Ruby murmured. "I already am."

They left the jet and began to make their way towards the facility, keeping downwind so that Ruby could pick up the scent traces from the place.

"They're here," she said flatly. "Magneto, Mystique, Zelena. They've been here and the scent's strong enough that they should still be here, or at least close.”

It did not take them long to find the gap in the metal fence that their adversary had forced, and they followed him through it towards the building. All of the CCTV cameras around the place had been switched off, and Belle could already tell how it had been done. Send Mystique in undercover, get her to cause some localised chaos and control everything that needed to be controlled from the inside, then let the other two in and wreak all manner of havoc. She scanned through the surroundings, but there were hardly any background mental voices. The facility was completely deserted, or so it seemed. For a horrifying moment, the thought crossed Belle’s mind that perhaps there were no voices because they had all been silenced.

“We’ve got to get in there,” she said. “There’s no-one inside. Well. No-one alive and thinking, at any rate.”

“Thanks for that distinction,” Logan said drily.

Ruby nodded in agreement. “Everything’s still too faint. It looks like everyone’s left; I’d be able to smell if they were still in there and just not… breathing.”

They walked up towards the dark entryway; the doors were locked but a swipe from Logan’s claws made short work of the electronics and they were inside. There were no alarms, and Ruby confirmed that there was no silent alarm, either. Everything had been disabled, but by Magneto and his colleagues or by the laboratory staff themselves, it was impossible to tell. The place looked, to all intents and purposes, to be completely deserted, more so than simply being out of working hours. Storm went over to the security desk.

“CCTV’s off,” she said, “but we knew that already. Still… something’s not right. There’s nothing…  personal around. There’s no paperwork or anything… Nothing that would mark it out as a functioning workplace.”

“They could just be very security conscious,” Scott suggested dryly. “Belle, Ruby, are you getting anything?”

Belle shook her head. There were no thoughts in the vicinity, and beside her, Ruby shook her head as well.

“I can smell my gran’s cooking,” she muttered. “They’ve had takeout from the diner delivered here.” Aloud to the others, she continued, “the trio’s still here, west wing I would say. But there’s no-one else. The place is deserted, Scott. There’s no-one here. Labs like this usually work twenty-four seven, especially if they have live subjects. But nothing’s working. All the systems are shut down, even back-up generators, and there is literally no-one here but us and them.”

“Well, I say we go and find them,” Storm said. “Even if intervention isn’t needed in the way we thought it might be, we want to find out if it was already in this state when they arrived.”

“Unless they find us first,” Ruby said, at the same moment as a soft _snikt_ sound heralded the arrival of Logan’s claws on the scene, and there was a rush of air in Belle’s ears. She glanced over at Storm, but her friend’s eyes were their usual brown. It was then that the tornado hit them from the opposite corner of the reception area, off toward the west wing. It was Zelena, hovering in the shadows.

The first thought that crossed Belle’s mind was that Regina would be relieved to know that she had not claimed a life with her powers, and the second was that she probably ought to get down to avoid being hurled against a wall in a whirlwind.

Luckily, Storm had retaliated, and the tornado that Zelena was sending in their direction dissipated, reformed, and was flung back at its originator with double the force and a loud peal of thunder for good measure.

“Zelena!”

The voice was Magneto’s, and Belle got up from behind the reception desk to see the older man and his blue companion coming out of the shadows.

“We don’t want to do our uninvited company too much harm now, do we?” he said. Zelena, picking herself up from Storm’s onslaught, just scowled. “They’ve only come with good intentions, but as you can see, they have come too late, as did we. Fear not, there are no petty humans for you to save here. It appears that we’ve been led on a wild goose chase.”

He was addressing Belle as he spoke, almost gloating in the fact that she could not get inside his head to check the veracity of his words. For a brief moment, in the back of her mind, Belle wondered whether Emma’s primary gift would work on Magneto when he was wearing his helmet, or whether her polygraphy was too closely linked to her telepathy. Belle shifted her focus to Mystique behind him, closing her eyes and pushing out into the older woman’s mind. She felt a sharp stab of pain behind her left eye as she did so, but she kept on, sweeping through Mystique’s thoughts, but Magneto’s words were true. The laboratory was as deserted when they had arrived as it was now. They’d taken some papers from some of the offices, but that was the extent of their criminal activity, and now they were on their way out, although what they planned to use the information that they had gleaned to do, Belle did not know. True, there were some minutes when the three of them had been separated, but to all intents and purposes, it had been a wild goose chase, just as Magneto had said.

She pulled back out of Mystique’s mind and the woman blinked rapidly as she came back into her own head, then smirked at Belle, a nasty kind of smile that said ‘I know what you did there’.

“So if there’s nothing more to do here, then I guess we’ll be on our merry way,” Magneto said. “Unless Charles sent you with a message for me? I have one for him, at any rate. At some point, Charles, you are going to learn that trying to protect people who actively want to kill you is not going to do you any favours.”

There was something in the words that Belle could not quite divine, a sense of… triumph, was it? She shook her head as the older man swept past, trying to get a lock onto Zelena and Mystique to see if she could work out from their thoughts what it was that he meant behind the words. She had never much lamented there being times when she could not hear people, but now Belle was cursing the lack of information. She focussed hard, closing her eyes again, but there was nothing that she could pick up.

There was something else. Very faint, but there, and she had not noticed it before because she had not been concentrating hard enough to pick up on it.

“Belle?”

Storm’s voice came into her mind, through her ears for once, and Belle opened her eyes to see everyone looking at her.

“Are you all right?” Ruby pressed.

Belle nodded, shook her head, then nodded again. "There's someone still here."

"What?" Scott said sharply.

"Down," Belle said. "There are still levels below the basement that aren't on any of the schematics. Right below us. There's a hell of a lot of concrete between us and them and it's dampening everything; but I'm definitely picking something up."

"How do we get down there?" Storm asked. "There's got to be a stairwell somewhere."

Belle could not get a lock on the person's thoughts, just that they were there and they were thinking something, so whoever they were, whether they were friend or foe, she wasn't going to be gleaning anything from them.  But all the same, Belle thought, perhaps she did not need outside help. She had been in a place where there were underground levels not on any schematics before. She did not want to have to think about her time in the asylum any more than she had to, but it was a hidden basement under the hospital - not on any plans, and yet hidden in plain sight. Looking around, she caught sight of the emergency exit door panel on the wall opposite.

"There," she said. "That'll be the way down."

“Come on, let’s go,” Ruby said. Scott blasted the lock panel and the door hissed open, opening out into a stairwell with an emergency exit door just beyond it. Ruby rushed through the door first, Belle following her and the others hot on their trail.

“Any trace?” Belle asked her friend.

“None,” Ruby called back. “All I can smell is chemicals. It’s too clinical down here, everything’s scrubbed.”

Belle looked around as they descended further and further below the laboratories into uncharted territory, her mind still pushing out and trying to lock onto the thoughts that she had heard. She was horribly aware that they might be rushing straight into a trap, and she sent a thought back up the stairs to Storm.

_Stay back, just in case something goes wrong. If you don’t hear from me in ten, get yourselves out._

Storm’s response came a moment later.

_Copy that. Be careful down there, you two. Logan’s coming down after you, Scott and I are staying up here._

Belle clocked out of the connection and began to put out mental feelers again. Down here in the dark, surrounded by tiled walls and the horrible smell of deeply sanitised hospitals, she was overwhelmed by the unwelcome memories of her time in the asylum, and she shuddered. Ruby caught the action and gave her a nervous smile that was obviously meant to reassure, but sadly fell somewhat short.

“It’ll be ok,” she said, before nodding to Logan over the top of Belle’s head. “Anything?”

He shook his head. “Not from my point of view. Belle?”

Belle closed her eyes against the distracting visual and swept through the thick concrete, searching out the same signature she had felt briefly earlier and finally picking it up again. The voice was not thinking in words or pictures, just raw emotions, which was what was making it harder to pick up. It was not fear that they were feeling, it was utter desolation and hopelessness, and Belle could not help the little gasp that escaped her.

“Belle?” Ruby’s face was the picture of concern, and Belle pointed down the corridor.

“She’s that way.”

They ran down the line of small cells, all of them open and showing that until recently they’d had occupants, and Belle focussed on the pain of the voice in her head in order to distract her from her own.

She couldn’t get a thought out, the girl – for she had established that they were a girl – was too distraught to be receptive.

“Here!” Ruby stopped outside the last door at the end of the corridor, pressing her ear against it for a moment then nodding. “Yes, she’s in here.”

Logan shouldered the door open easily and they entered the darkened room.

“Hello?” Ruby called.

A terrible, high-pitched squeal came from the corner of the room, the sound made by someone who is screaming through their nose because they can’t scream through their mouth.

“Jesus!” Ruby took off towards the source of the sound, the others hot on her heels. Behind her, Belle heard Logan light a flare, and suddenly the room was bathed in eerie light and the full extent of it was revealed.

It was very obviously a vivisection lab; there was no doubting it. As deserted as the rest of the building, it was completely tiled, with drains in the centre, the floor slightly sloping. Belle felt sick, but even more sick when she saw the person who had screamed.

She was lying on a table on her stomach, bound down with straps that a frantic Ruby was trying to undo, her wrists bound together and a rudimentary bitgag stuffed in her mouth, her dirty blonde hair falling into her terrified eyes, shying away from the sudden light, and she could not have been all that much older than Rogue. There were tear tracks staining her cheeks, and parallel lines of crusted dried blood dripping down from her nose.

But what made Belle’s breath catch the most was her wings. She was naked from the waist up and from her back were protruding four beautiful iridescent dragonfly wings, like a fairy brought to life off the page of a fantasy book. They were held in place with straps dangling from the ceiling, and from their torn and battered edges, it looked like her captors had been just as fascinated with them as Belle was.

“Here, Ruby, let me.”

Logan put down the flare and within seconds had cut through all the straps as Ruby dealt with the gag.

“Hey, it’s ok,” she soothed, smoothing the girl’s hair out of her face. “It’s all right, we’ve got you.”

_You’re safe with us, I promise_ , Belle pushed out, before sending a thought up to Scott and Storm in the stairwell. _You’ve got to get down here, stat._

_On my way,_ Storm replied. _Scott’s investigating the main offices upstairs._

Ruby was still calming the girl on the gurney; although her thoughts were still scattered and scared, she was speaking in a croaky, choked voice.

“They evacuated, they all left, everyone, they took all the others but they left me here, they forgot about me…”

“You’re going to be all right,” Ruby said, “we’re going to get you out of here.” As calm and motherly as her words were, Ruby’s thoughts were a torrent of cursing and swearing and wishing bloody death and dismemberment upon those who had treated the girl in this horrific way; and she was practically screaming inside Belle’s head. Belle could not blame her, she was sure that her own thoughts were doing exactly the same thing.

“I’m going back up,” Logan said, passing the flare to Belle and sprinting away from the group; he had obviously sensed the girl’s unease at his presence just as Ruby had and decided to remove himself from the situation and let the ladies deal with the situation. He passed Storm in the doorway, exchanging a pointed look.

“What’s your name?” Belle asked the girl; it was clear that if she wanted to get anything from her mentally, she was going to have to get inside her head and search for it herself. “How old are you?”

“They call me Tink,” she said. “Tinkerbell. I’m eighteen.”

“Come on Tink, let’s get you out of here. We’ll take you somewhere safe,” Ruby said, helping her up into a sitting position. Storm had joined them by this point, and she unfastened her cape from her shoulders and wrists to drape it around the young blonde, who pulled it in around her bare torso gratefully.

“Where are you taking me?” Tink asked.

“A safe place for our kind,” Belle said, but the words were barely out of her mouth when a clear broadcast thought pushed into her mind from Scott.

_We’ve got to get out of here now!_

_We’re on our way_ , Belle sent back. _What’s wrong?_

_Everything. Place is set to self-destruct, we have six minutes, and we’ve found something we really don’t like the look of. They know about the school._

“WHAT?” Belle exclaimed. The other women looked at her in alarm as she waved them urgently towards the door with the flare, which was about to run down.

_They know about the school, Belle. Just get back to the jet asap, I’ll explain there._

“Everybody out!” Belle yelled, and they rushed towards the stairwell, Belle leading the way and Storm bringing up the rear; Ruby came in the middle supporting Tink’s scant weight, but halfway up the stairs decided it would be easier to cut her losses and carry her, piggy-back style. Logan met them coming down as they were coming up and he took Tink from Ruby without a word, picking her up as if she weighed nothing and running towards the exit with her. Magneto, Mystique and Zelena were long gone, and Scott was already at the jet, preparing for take-off as they raced towards it. There was no need for any kind of secrecy now; who was there to hide from?

The four of them made it up the ramp and Storm went up to the pilot’s seat whilst Ruby took care of Tink. Belle came up into the cockpit.

“What do you mean ‘they know about the school’?” she asked Scott as Storm finished making the final pre-flight preparations. Scott grabbed a handful of papers from the dash in front of him and showed them to her, and Belle realised what he meant with horror. It was a map of the school; complete detailed schematics including the lower levels that should not have been on any publicly available blueprints of the place.

“There’s only one reason why they would have a map like that in a place like this,” Scott said.

“Everybody strap in!” Storm called down the plane. “We’re taking off!”

Belle strapped into the seat behind Scott so that she could keep talking to him. She had just realised what was going on, why the place was deserted.

“They’re going to the school,” she said faintly. Scott nodded. “They abandoned the place as a decoy, they left Tink in there knowing that we would be distracted by her and get her out instead of just turning straight round and leaving…”

The jet took off just as the building burst into flames.

“… and they’ll destroy us along with the building and all the evidence of what they were doing.”

“Not all the evidence,” Scott said, watching the place burn below them. “We’ve rescued some of it, and Magneto has the rest. It’s not much, but it’s enough.” He turned to look over his shoulder at Tink, and Belle caught his thought whether she was meant to or not.

_Is she going to be ok?_

Belle gave a minute shrug.

_I don’t know. I dread to think what’s been done to her whilst she’s been there. So much for us telling her that we’re going to a safe place._

“We’ve got to get back to the school; who knows how much of a head start they’ve got on us.”

“I don’t even want to think about it,” Storm muttered beside them. “It begs the question though; why would they come and take a bunch of test subjects from the school if they’ve blown up their research facility?”

“I don’t know… unless…” Belle buried her head in her hands with a groan. “Unless they plan to turn the school into their new research facility,” she finished. “Why else would they need all the plans of everything? You can’t deny, of all the places in the world we are one of the best equipped for experimenting on mutants. All our medical equipment, all of the workings of Cerebro – everything we do is designed specifically with mutants in mind. If anyone with malfeasant intentions gets into the lower levels, well, we’ve basically just given them a research lab on a plate, completely equipped to their specification.”

“How did they even find out about the school in the first place?” Scott asked.

“Oh God…” Ruby’s voice from the back of the jet was faint and horrified, and Belle twisted to see that her friend had gone bleach white.

“Ruby?”

“My granny,” she said. “They’ve had takeout from Granny’s here. Granny’s the only link.”

“You think she told them?” Storm asked sharply.

“No, she’d never do anything like that!” Ruby exclaimed. “But I call the diner all the time from the school, and she calls me, but I haven’t heard from her for a week... And Granny helped Rum and Bae escape from the hunters… They must have made the link somewhere along the line.”

Storm and Scott looked at each other, and there wasn’t even a thought passed between them. Storm through the jet into full throttle, and the plane roared through the sky back towards the school.

 


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter Eighteen**

It was not quite as late as it had been the previous night, but the school was still darkened and quiet, with most of the students in bed. The only rooms with lights on the ground floor were the kitchen and the TV room, which were somewhat par for the course. Rum peered into the TV room on his way past. Artie was there, like usual, changing the channel every minute or so and content to be left alone; and Regina and Emma were together in one corner, not really paying attention to each other but obviously staying awake in solidarity. At least his own son appeared to have remained asleep tonight. Rum moved on towards the kitchen in search of the final cup of tea of the night before he turned in. Not that he was going to get much sleep, with so many people away from the school in situations of varying danger. His thoughts went immediately to Belle, and he would admit that he was slightly embarrassed as to how quickly his thoughts went to her. From what he had overheard from the discussions between the staff after Regina's return, the mutant they were going up against was incredibly ruthless and not afraid of a little collateral damage in his goal. And even if they were successful in stopping him, they would be at the labs, in prime position to be taken and experimented on. He did not want to imagine the tortures that they would cook up to try and extract the secrets of Belle's gift from her precious mind. No, he was certain that he would not sleep until he knew that they were all, but especially Belle, safe and sound back at the Institute.

"Tea, Mr Gold?" Marco did not look up as Rum limped into the kitchen and eased himself into his usual chair at the table.

"I'm beginning to think that your powers include a sixth sense, Marco," Rum replied dryly. "But tea would be lovely, thank you."

Marco just chuckled. "When you've been here as long as I have, a sixth sense is necessary." He brought the teapot over and set it on the table; a brush of his fingers against the luridly pink knitted cosy had it jumping into life and covering the teapot. "That never fails to make me smile," he murmured. "No matter what bad things are going on in the world, with the adults you knew as children going off to fight the good fight, worried that they might not make it back... I'll always have Moira's tea cosies." He poured two mugs of tea and offered milk and sugar to Rum, who declined, and the two men sipped their tea in silence for a while.

"It's good to have some company on nights like these," Marco said eventually. "I don't blame Moira for leaving; she wanted to go home and she is doing good work in Scotland, helping our cause. But after she left, it was hard to spend these evenings alone when the jet goes out. Especially with Ruby, Storm and Belle... I've known them since they first came here as children, scared teenagers just coming into their powers. Now they've grown, but they're still the same scared teenagers in my eyes."

Rum nodded, thinking about Bae and watching him grow. "I know exactly how you feel."

It felt like only yesterday that he had first held his newborn son and made the promise that no matter what, he would never be alone, and Rum would always be there for him. It had been touch and go, back there in the alley with Milah and Killian, but they had survived, by sheer willpower if nothing else. Rum wondered when they could get back to the life they had known before, or if Bae would even want to go back. He was making good friends here, and the bullying that had plagued him his entire school life was no more. Bae was happy here, a lot happier than he had been in the pink Victorian, and Rum could not deny him that happiness, however much he craved the quiet and isolation of his basement and his spinning wheel. The school's staff and students had been very good about leaving him alone and letting him have space, but he was not sure that this was a long term viable solution. Perhaps this was the time to let Bae go after all, let him continue on this happy life here whilst Rum returned to the life he had always known. But then again...

He glanced across the kitchen, catching a glimpse of his reflection in the shiny fridge door. It was nice to be able to speak to people without a thick mask of make-up covering his face. It was nice not having to hide all the time, and only shirking company when said company became too much, rather than by necessity.

"I never had children of my own," Marco said. "But I have always thought of the students here as my children, and it is difficult to see them grow up and leave the nest. But you always have a special place in their hearts, even when you are apart from them."

"I know." Rum sighed. "It's just been me and Bae for so long, practically since the moment he was born. I can't imagine any kind of life without him. But I suppose you have to let them fly sooner or later."

"True," Marco said, making the salt and pepper shakers on the table dance. "But you can't make them fly if they don't want to, or aren't ready. You need to talk to your boy, Rum. That's the only way you're going to make a decision. Neither one of you can make it for the other, you have to make it together, like you have done everything together. Just know that whatever you decide, you will never be turned away from these doors."

Rum nodded. "Thank you, Marco."

The older man shrugged and helped himself to another cup of tea. "We see many people come and go, so many young people who have been shunned by their parents, and it can wear you down sometimes, knowing that there is so much fear and hatred where there should be unconditional love. But you and Bae give us hope."

Rum raised an eyebrow sceptically. "Well, I think that's the first time I've ever been a source of inspiration to anyone."

Marco laughed, shaking his head. "You really think that? When for days after you arrived, all your son could talk about was how incredibly amazing his father was?"

Rum traced a long fingernail around the rim of his mug, thinking about the events leading up to the catastrophe that had brought them to the school, and the way that Bae had confronted him about his attitude towards his own mutation. He had not felt like a hero then; however inadvertently that his own self-loathing had been projected onto his son he still felt incredibly guilty that he had done so.

“In Bae’s eyes, you’re a hero,” the older man said simply.

There was a slight shuffling sound by the kitchen door and Marco smiled.

"Hello, Rogue."

Rogue popped her head into the kitchen.

"How did you know it was me?" she asked in disbelief. "I swear you're a telepath and you just haven't told us," she muttered, coming into the kitchen and helping herself to a glass of water. "So, are you waiting up for them to come back too?"

Marco and Rum nodded and Rogue stared out of the window.

"Do you ever worry that they won't come back?" she murmured, not really addressing either man in particular; she was talking to herself more than anyone.

"All the time," Marco said. "But all we can do is hope. You know what the professor says. As long as we have hope, we have not lost everything."

Rogue nodded.

"It feels quieter tonight, with so many people gone," she said. "It doesn't feel safe, not without the professor."

"We'll get by," Marco reassured her. "It's only one night, and they'll be back soon."

"If they come back," Rogue muttered. Marco reached across and patted her shoulder.

"Logan will always come back to you," he said. "Of everyone who has gone, he's the one I'm the least worried about."

Rogue gave a snort of dry laughter. "I should threaten to drink his secret stash of beer, that'll get him here all right."

She almost looked over at the kitchen door, as if she was expecting him to burst in and lay claim to his alcohol right there and then.

"It's too quiet," she said finally with a sigh, before looking back to the two men and focussing her attention on Rum. "So, how are you getting on with Belle?"

Rum nearly choked on his tea. "I beg your pardon?"

"Well it's not exactly a secret that you and her spend a lot of time together."

Rum shook his head in disbelief. "Honestly, you're worse than my own son," he muttered. Finally he cleared his throat and looked Rogue calmly in the eye. “Belle and I are getting on very well, thank you for your interest. She has been very kind to me and Bae whilst we’ve been here. Everyone’s been very kind,” he added hastily, not wanting Marco to feel in any way maligned by his praise of Belle. The older man just laughed.

“Don’t worry, we know what you mean,” he said. “But speaking of being kind, I think I should take Jean some lemsip. She spends so much time caring about the rest of us that she forgets to care for herself sometimes.” He got up and pottered about the kitchen, making the medicinal drink and leaving Rum and Rogue alone in the room with their beverages.

“It’s because we’ve all been in the same boat, I think,” Rogue said, steering the conversation back to Rum’s original thread, taking a sip of her water and tracing a finger around the rim of the glass. “We know what it’s like to be helpless or on the run with no-one to turn to, and we all remember how glad we felt when someone reached out a helping hand and gave us a place to belong, and so we do the same for others, because we don’t want anyone to feel the same way that we did, so we all pitch in to make sure that everyone feels welcome.” Rogue tailed off, no doubt remembering her own rather tempestuous start to her stay at the school. Whilst Rum did not know the full details of everyone’s tales, he knew the basics from what Belle had mentioned in passing. “All the same, Belle certainly seems to have taken quite a shine to you, Mr Gold.”

“I couldn’t possibly comment,” Rum muttered, and in that moment he was really quite glad that his skin made him comparatively unable to blush. “But you’re right,” he added eventually, trying to pull the conversation back towards more neutral ground. “I wouldn’t want anyone to go through what Bae and I did, that’s for sure.”

They all fell into silence again, thinking about the events that had led them to where they were now.

“Why would someone do something like that?” Rogue asked. “Hunting down mutants and snatching them off the streets in broad daylight… you wouldn’t think that something like that could happen.”

“It’s because we’re so often alone; they think that no-one will notice that we’re missing. And I suppose for a lot of people, they’d be right,” Marco said as he entered the kitchen again. “That’s why places like this –“ he gestured around the kitchen to indicate the school in general “-are so important. United we stand, divided we fall.”

It was a chilling prospect, and Rum gave an involuntary shiver, pouring himself another cup of tea.

“I suppose I should be getting back to bed,” Rogue said despondently, although she showed no signs of actually moving, and neither of the men had any inclination of chastising her for being unable to sleep on this of all nights.

“I don’t think anyone will begrudge you wanting to make sure everyone comes back safe and sound,” Marco said gently.

Rogue nodded, then her brow furrowed and she turned her head on one side.

“Are they back already?” she asked, puzzled. “That was quick.”

“What are you talking about?” Marco said. “They aren’t back.”

“No, there’s an aircraft overhead, I can hear it.”

Marco cocked one ear up too and nodded slowly. “Yes, it’s very close. Doesn’t sound like the Bluebird, though… More like a helicopter. I wonder why it would be hovering?”

Rogue shrugged. “Lost, perhaps?” She snorted at her own suggestion. “Ok, maybe not.” She paused. “I don’t like the sound of this. It’s ominous.”

Rum did not like the sound of it either. With most of the school’s staff gone on various efforts, the students were as good as undefended. There was not exactly much that he and Marco could do, when push came to shove, and Jean would not be much more help from her sick bed. There was something about that far off sound of persistent rotar blades that made him uneasy, and all three of them remained silent, staring at the ceiling, until the sound passed and they could breathe again. Rogue shrugged and finished with her water, and she was just about to leave the room when there was the sound of running footsteps and Emma careened into the room, Regina and Artie hot on her heels.

“Something’s not right,” she exclaimed, the words falling over themselves in her haste to get them out. “Something’s really not right, I can hear it in my head, something’s really wrong.”

The girl looked pained, and Rum realised that he had seen that expression before on Belle, when the voices in her head became too much for her. Emma’s latent telepathy had picked up on something, an unknown voice.

It was then that a piercing, horrific scream cut through the school, its timbre almost painful to hear.

“That’s Theresa!” Regina yelled over the noise of several windows on one of the upper floors breaking with the sound.

“What in the hell?” Rum looked around, hoping for some kind of explanation from one of the others, but all he could get was the impression that they were under attack and that running for it was going to be the best option.

There was the sound of running footsteps and doors opening and shutting upstairs. Rum looked to Marco, and the older man had an expression of utter fierceness across his features.

“We need to get everyone out,” he said. “Regina, Rogue, you know where the tunnels are. Rum, stay here on the ground floor, I’m going up.”

“What’s happening?” Rum asked, willing to follow Marco’s instructions but as terrified as the children no doubt were by this frightening new development. He didn’t really need to be told; he was piecing it all together himself. The helicopter overhead… They must have landed on the roof, whoever ‘they’ were. Oh the irony, that Rogue should have said that she did not feel safe without the professor there. Rum did not feel at all safe himself without the other adults there. He had only been at the place for a little over a week; and now he was being called upon to defend it.

“This way!” Rogue sped off down the corridor towards the stairs, but instead of going up them she felt along the panelling beneath them until she evidently found something that she was looking for and threw all her weight against the wood. It shifted under the force of her blow but did not give way completely, and she rammed into it with her shoulder again, wincing in pain.

“It’s stuck!”

Rum knew that he needed to act. There were children, including his own child, that needed to be got to safety, and he could not stand by and let terrible things happen to them. He limped over to Rogue and felt around the panel. Simply hefting into it was not going to be an option; his injured chest would not take it. He had to think.

More children were rushing down the stairs now, and in the midst of it all, Rum could see the hazy mist of Bae’s teleportation portals opening and closing up and down the stairs until his son landed in an ungainly heap at his feet, looking up at him with a scared expression. Marco was nowhere to be seen, he had already sped off up the stairs with a speed that belied his years. It was up to Rum.

He saw what he needed, a glimmer of gold.

“Earring,” he said, holding out a hand to the girl, who wasted no time in taking out the gold stud and passing it to him. Rum took it, melting it under his touch and reforming it into a long probe which he stuck down between the panel and the wall, finding the blockage and slicing through it. The panel, which Rogue had been leaning against to try and get it to budge, suddenly gave out and she stumbled into the passageway.

“Come on, everyone out!”

Bae scrabbled to his feet, and Rum could tell from his concentration that he was getting ready to teleport again.

“Bae, no!” It was too late, the portal had opened; from the brief glimpse that he received through it Rum could make out the dormitories on the upper floors, but then he had to pull back for fear of losing an appendage. A moment later, Bae was back, pulling another student by the hand. Rum grabbed his son’s arm before he could vanish again.

“No. You get out with the rest of them. I nearly lost you once, I’m not doing it again.”

“But there’s others still upstairs!” Bae exclaimed. “We’ve got to get them out!”

“And we will, but not at the expense of your own safety.”

“And not at yours either!” Bae said. “I can’t lose you either!”

Rum took a deep breath. “You won’t,” he said. “I swear. But I’ve hidden away for too long, Bae, and it’s time for me to put cowardice behind me. Now go!”

Bae turned and ran into the tunnel with one last lingering look over his shoulder. He was the last one into the tunnels, and Rum pulled the panel closed again. The sounds of running footsteps could still be heard upstairs, and he made out a chilling shout of pain that sounded like it had come from Marco.

Rum took a deep breath and limped towards the stairs, armed with his crutch and a small thread of gold from an earring, looking around for anything else that he could use in defence. Bae thought of him as a hero. It was time to live up to that title.


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter Nineteen**

Rum began up the stairs, looking around him for that tell-tale hint of yellow metal that indicated something that he could use to his advantage. It was normally the first thing that he did whenever he went anywhere new, look for some kind of weaponry in the woodwork, and the fact that he had not done it within the school was testament to the fact that he generally felt safe here. There was very little to be seen, if he was being honest, but he wouldn’t let that perturb him. There was gilt on some of the picture frames, and Rum brushed his fingers over it as he passed on up the stairs, bringing the particles with him and reforming them over his hand, for what end he did not yet know.

A couple of kids rushed past him down the stairs towards the secret passageway, and a moment later, a man in dark camo raced after them. His green skin acting as natural camouflage, the assailant did not notice Rum’s presence in the shadows until a split second too late, by which time Rum had already reached out with his crutch and tripped the man up, sending him tumbling down the stairs. He hoped that the kids would have got out before he got to his feet, and barely realising what he was doing, he had reformed the gold from the earring into a tiny dart, sending it shooting down the stairs after the soldier he had tripped and embedding it firmly in his neck. It would slow him down even if it did not kill him, and buy the children some valuable time.

There was an earsplitting crunch above him, the sound of wood splintering, and another man in the same camo fatigues as the first came flying straight through a wall, past Rum, and through the picture window that bathed the staircase in silvery moonlight, the plate glass shattering and blowing a three story hole in the wall. Rum took a step back, slightly perturbed, but then continued up the stairs. He had to find Marco if nothing else; he’d never forgive himself if Marco were to be injured in the line of duty.

Reaching the first floor, he saw Peter, steel body gleaming in the darkness, shepherding a bunch of younger students down the corridor towards the stairs. Peter caught Rum’s eye and gestured up; that was where the brunt of the action was taking place, and no doubt where he would find Marco and Jean.

“Some of the younger ones are still up there,” Peter said as he herded his group past Rum. The older man gave a nod of acknowledgement.

“All right. Get yourself out.”

He had no idea what he was going to do faced with assailants who were both highly trained and in much better physical condition than he was, but he had to do something. They were threatening children. If there was one thing that Rum could not and would not stand for, however much of a coward he might be, it was the massacre of innocent children by adults. Bae was safe and sound, but that was not enough. Bae’s friends were still in here, and no-one was going to get left behind. Not on Rum’s watch. He was terrified, but that was what bravery was about, really, wasn’t it? Feeling the fear and doing it anyway?

He pushed on up the next flight of stairs to find Jean in her pyjamas, telekinetically pulling furniture out of rooms and using it to barricade both ends of the corridor.

“Marco’s hurt!” she called to him, gesturing up another floor. Rum could hear the sounds of running footsteps and doors being kicked open even more clearly now; what use was there in their assailants trying to be quiet when the school had already been alerted to their presence by Theresa’s scream? Halfway up the stairs there was an earsplitting boom, and Rum barely had time to throw himself down and cover his head as Jean’s furniture barricade was disintegrated; the soldiers having come down the outside of the building and simply blasted their way through. Jean stopped the shrapnel and threw it back at them, and Rum continued up to try and help Marco. At the top of the house, there were more broken windows, blown out by Theresa’s voice, and Marco was lying there, a small puddle of blood beneath his head.

He groaned as Rum came over to him, which meant that at least he wasn’t dead at that moment.

“I’m all right,” he said faintly. “Where are the others?”

Rum opened his mouth to reply but then something caught the corner of his eye and he turned. Another soldier was rushing along the dark corridor in pursuit of their colleagues, and Rum threw the handful of gilt particles into their face, momentarily blinding them and allowing him to get a hit in with his crutch. It sent them toppling over the edge of the broken window, whether that had been his intention or not Rum did not know. All the same, the lucky escape was not lucky for long; they grabbed onto the end of the metal crutch, dragging Rum down to the floor by dint of their weight. Rum’s chest felt like it was on fire, and his ankle was not doing much better; he just had to twist his arm out of the cuff of the crutch…

“Rum!”

Rum blinked in shock as he recognised the voice that was hailing him from below, and he looked down at the person he had toppled, clinging onto him for dear life to prevent the long drop onto the hard, snow-covered ground below.

It was Milah.

Rum shook his head… Before there would have been fear at her presence, but now, although that knee-jerk reaction and wish to get himself out of there as fast as possible was still there, it was being overtaken by something far more cold and visceral, the same kind of cool rage that had fuelled him back in the alley when she and Killian had cornered them and she had threatened her own child. Now, she was threatening him, however indirectly, again, and Rum could feel the anger bubbling in his veins.

“Not you…” he hissed, struggling through the pain and breathlessness. “After everything you’ve already done… Why couldn’t you just leave us alone?”

“Rum, please…”

The fall probably wouldn’t kill her, but it would definitely hurt, and for a moment, Rum just wanted her to hurt, wanted to hurt her in the same way that she had hurt him so very badly, but he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t stoop to her level.

They had fallen into a stalemate, neither of them able to move, and yet Rum knew that he needed to get moving in order to get where he needed to be, in order to play his part and protect the school.

“Why?” he asked. “Why would you do it?”

Milah didn’t answer, just looking up at him with desperation as a howling gust of wind blew around the house, more forceful than any natural storm that Rum had ever known. There could only be one source of a wind so powerful.

His arm was killing him where the cuff of the crutch was cutting into it, and as he moved, he saw blood dribble down from where broken glass had sliced through his sleeve. He winced at the pain, trying to twist his arm away from the sharp shards and out of the cuff.

There was a scream, and the weight dragging him down was suddenly lifted as the crutch was wrenched away from his arm, taking Milah with it, blown down to the ground by the wind. Reeling from the suddenness of the movement, Rum gingerly peered out of the window to see his ex-wife crumpled on the ground. From this distance he could not tell if she was still alive or not, and in that moment, he did not care. There were greater things to be worrying about; the other attackers were still in the building and there were still children inside. On top of that, he’d lost the crutch, and getting onto his feet and making himself useful was going to take a while. He could only hope that his assumption about the freak winds had been correct.

Looking up from Milah’s prone form, Rum saw the Bluebird touch down on the basketball court and he breathed a sigh of relief. As he had suspected, Storm had returned to the school. Help had arrived.

X

Belle had no idea what to expect as they landed outside the school; she'd had terrible visions of the place having gone up in flames, but at first sight there was no sign of anything having gone astray. It was only once she tuned into the background thoughts that she realised just how astray everything had gone. It was far too quiet. The minds of the students were nowhere in the vicinity, and although in any other situation that would have been cause for downright terror, never mind concern, now it brought Belle infinite relief as she knew that the children were safe and sound away from the house. Only a few remained within the building.

"Stay here," she heard Ruby telling Tink. "We'll come back and get you when it's safe, we promise."

As they left the jet, leaving the ramp open so that the younger girl could get out if necessary, Belle saw that all was not well; many of the windows on the south side of the house were shattered and Rum was staggering to his feet beside one of the missing panes on the top floor, his crutch lost and his balance precarious. The windows were dark but she could see the beams of flashlights bouncing around all over the walls inside; they were definitely outnumbered and certainly outgunned.

They didn’t have any kind of battle plan as they all raced towards the house, their only thought being to get the children out; they never went looking for a fight but they would defend their home and everything that they stood for to the last.

Logan was the first in, which did not surprise Belle in the slightest. Of all of them he had the least compunctions with violence and bloodshed; he was a soldier, although he might not remember it, and on top of all that, there was Rogue caught in the crossfire.

Their sudden appearance in the foyer stopped the group of attackers coming down the stairs in their tracks, startled for a moment by the mother bears returning to the nest so soon, but it was not enough to perturb them for long, and they opened fire in a haze of tranquilizer darts that they only just managed to dodge of the way of in time.

A bolt of lightning cut across the sky and came in through the open window, shocking one of the men and sending him toppling over the balustrade. Logan and Scott rushed the other two whilst Ruby raced off down the corridor to secure the precious lower levels.

Belle stood still in the foyer, scanning the brainwaves around her, trying to formulate a logical plan of attack.

_Scott, behind you!_

He turned and got a hit in just in time, and Belle shook her head. They had more than enough determination, but they could not be everywhere at once.

Everywhere at once. The thought hit Belle with force and she couldn’t believe that she had not considered it before. There was one way to stop them all at once. Belle had seen the professor do it on more than one occasion, but she had never yet attempted to do it herself, considering the terrible strain on her mind that her first attempts at such a far-reaching act had caused. They had called the professor and he and Hank were on their way back to the house as quickly as they could get there, but they didn’t have time to wait that long. Storm had done a good job of grounding the attackers’ helicopter with her powers, but the ones already in the building still remained, and this was no small skirmish squad – they were highly trained, and on the warpath. It was the only way to guarantee stopping them, and she was going to have to do it herself.

If she could push out her mind into all of the conscious human minds in the building, like the professor pushing out to all of the minds in the world with Cerebro, then she could get into their heads and 'shutdown', in Logan's words. Freeze them and keep them from doing any more harm until they could get the rest of the kids out, let the others deal with their mindless forms whilst she kept them unaware and oblivious for as long as possible. Belle had done it before, when she had escaped from the asylum, and she had not really properly tried it since. A simple shutdown would not require as much effort as full control, which was one thing, but doing it to more than one person at once would require a level of power that Belle wasn't sure she had. Still, she had to try. There wasn't anything else that her gifts could do to help, and she had to help.

Closing her eyes and pressing her hands to her temples to better focus her projection, Belle pushed out her consciousness all around the school, filtering through all of the different trains of thought that she could hear until she was touching only the soldiers, leaving her fellow mutants free. Now all she had to do was freeze them all out at the same time. There were ten of them, operating in two teams of five, with two more unconscious, and Belle took a moment to feel the consciousness of each of them touching hers before pushing out with all her mind.

She had never felt anything like it, and her legs gave out at the sensation, her mind so completely focussed on the minds of others that her body literally fell by the wayside. She landed heavily on her knees in a crumpled heap, vaguely registering the pain in her kneecaps against the hard floor.

The minds that she was linked to stopped immediately, consciousness freezing, and had she had the ability and inclination, each of them would be hers for the taking, an empty vessel waiting for her mind to fill it and tell it what to do, just as she had done at the asylum. When she opened her eyes, could see through all of theirs simultaneously, the images layering on top of each other and vying for dominance until she could no longer focus on the scene in front of her own eyes, and she closed them against the disorientation. Her mind was struggling desperately, and Belle felt like she was holding onto thousands of strings, each one a different thought or sense in her targets' minds, and they kept slithering out of her grasp, leaving her to run around after them picking up the pieces as the subconscious minds fought her for control, unused to the sensation of having another mind invading theirs and utterly unwilling to share the space. She could have held them, had they all remained calm and unthinking, but their minds were active having caught them in the middle of the fight; adrenaline was kicking in and affecting the brain chemistry, in turn affecting their mental state. She couldn't keep hold of them for long. There were too many tendrils, and she was losing as many threads as she managed to catch again.

It was pure determination that was keeping her going, stopping her from breaking the connection completely. The familiar throbbing pain behind her eye sockets had returned, increasing with every second that she maintained the connection. Vaguely, she wondered how the professor managed to do it, but she could not ponder for long, as any thought of her own unrelated to the current situation broke her concentration and sent more threads of thought and sensation flying to the four winds. Even though she was not moving at all, she was tiring quickly. Her own senses were numbed to everything, but she could hear people moving about above and around her, feeling the vibrations through the floor. She had ten brains now, aside from her own, ten minds processing everything, and each tiny stimulus was increased tenfold. It was an overwhelming sensation and Belle felt tears pricking the back of her eyelids. She couldn't keep it up much longer, and she could feel her grip on consciousness slipping away from her as she fought so desperately to keep a hold on all of the minds that were struggling to get away from her. Her mind was going into a lockdown, she could tell, not only shutting down the assailants but also shutting down her own thoughts; the easiest way to cause a blackout in the people she was linked to was to experience one herself.

"Belle."

The voice coming in through her ears felt very far away, but common sense told her that it was right next to her. She closed her eyes, feeling something warm and wet run down her face, blocking her nose, and as she opened her mouth to take a gasp of air, she tasted blood on her lips and tongue, the metallic tang making her gag.

"Belle, it's all right, you can stop now."

But she was too far gone to stop; she'd pushed too far and she had no idea how she was going to claw her way back.

The touch on her shoulder felt horribly heavy, as if it was weighing her down into the floor, and her body buckled under the weight, collapsing sideways into something soft and yet solid, and she felt warm arms come round her.

"I've got you, Belle. Just let go now. Everyone's safe. You've done so well. Come back now, Belle. Come back for me, you said you would."

It was Rum's voice, and his fingers stroking her sweaty, bloody hair back from her face. How he'd managed to get down three flights of stairs without his crutch to get to her she did not know, but in that moment, Belle did not care; she was just thankful for his support. Every nerve was hypersensitised, her fraught mind picking up even the smallest of signals, but for all its intensity, the touch was a gentle one. It felt like home - safe, and comforting.

"Let go," he soothed. "Just let go of everything. I've got you, safe and sound."

A memory floated back to her, of her time in Cerebro with the professor, and the advice he had given her, of clinging to a lifeline so that she could always find her way back. Her mind was too stretched to find a telepathic link, but she had Rum's voice, crooning softly in her ears, and she latched onto that like a drowning person grabbing a lifebelt, curling herself up around his voice, curling up into the very real hold of his arms around her.

"I'm here," he said, voice barely more than a whisper penetrating her fuzzy skull. "I've got you."

Still unwilling to open her eyes against the pain in her head, Belle groped out with one hand, finding Rum's sleeve and sinking her fingers into the fabric, clutching onto the lifeline that would bring her back from the brink, and she felt one of his hands close over hers, thumb gently stroking over her knuckles.

"I've got you," he repeated. "Stay with me, Belle. I'm right here."

Gradually, Belle began to pull away from the myriad minds that she was connected to, clinging to Rum with all her might, focussing on his voice and his arms as she became aware of other voices in the vicinity, hovering above her.

"That's it. Just let go, Belle, it's all going to be all right."

Rum's voice was stronger now, it felt real rather than a possible figment of her overwrought mind, and finally, as Belle pulled back into her own head, the ringing in her ears stopped and the pain began to die back. She was back. She was safe. Rum had pulled her back from the brink of mental implosion, and a heavy exhaustion began to wash over her, making her limbs feel like leaden weights.

"Relax," Rum said, squeezing the hand that was still fisted in his sleeve. "I've got you."

Belle let the oncoming oblivion take her, safe and contented in the knowledge that the school was safe in her hands, and she was safe in Rum's.

 


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter Twenty**

After that initial moment of shock in which everything stood as still as the statues that their attackers had become, everything seemed to happen very quickly. It was clear that Belle was holding them in place and it was even clearer that she would not be able to hold on indefinitely. The school became a blur of activity as the X-Men rushed around disarming and securing the assailants, making sure the remaining children were ok, calling the police, the professor, explaining to all and sundry what was going on and what kind of a cover story they could use with the outside world to make sense of the unbelievable events that had just occurred. There were children to go after in the tunnels and bring back to safety; there was an injured Marco and a still-unwell Jean to attend to; there was Tink still outside in the jet, who had been promised a safe haven when they had taken her from the labs only for her to come straight into a battlefield involving the very people she had just escaped from. 

And in the middle of it all there was Belle, collapsed and bleeding in Rum's arms in the middle of the foyer, her mind deep in the blissful oblivion of unconsciousness after the incredible strain that had been put upon it. Rum couldn't move with her; all he could do was hold her and keep her safe from the frantic activity going on around them as best he could. In spite of everything else happening all over the house, that little patch of floor in the entrance hall, overshadowed by the stairwell, remained calm and quiet, everyone trusting the gentle man with the alarming appearance to take care of their Belle whilst they could not. 

Satisfied that there was no more she could do for the time being and that her friend's wellbeing won out over all other possible tasks, Storm went over to them, crouching beside Rum and touching his shoulder to get his attention; he seemed to have fallen into something of a trance, just watching over Belle and cleaning her face as well as he could with the sleeve of his shirt. 

He looked up at Storm and gave a weak smile. 

"Her nose has stopped bleeding," he said. "It took a little while though, I was getting worried."

Storm nodded. "She is very pale. We need to get her down to the medical room and make her comfortable. Hank is on his way with the professor; he will look after her whilst Jean's out of action."

"How's Marco?" Rum asked. 

"He's going to be ok. Sore head, but no lasting damage. He says he's used to headaches, he's put up with us for long enough. He's fine."

Rum nodded. "I'm glad to hear it."

Storm waved Logan over to her as he came in from outside, stamping the snow off his boots. "Belle's going to be all right too," she said. "She's got one of the toughest minds we've ever known. She'll get back from this."

She hoped that her words would be true. Although her telepathy could not rival the professor's, Belle's mind was incredibly powerful and she could push it a long way before something snapped. Storm remembered the first time Belle had gone too far whilst training at the school; whilst mopping up her nose she'd joked about having pushed so far her brain had started dribbling out. But Belle had never pushed this far before. She knew her limits, and although she had tested her boundaries in the past, she was very good about not putting herself in danger. Until tonight, when all thought for her personal safety had gone completely out of the window in her desperation to make sure that her friends and family were safe. 

"Ok, I've got her."

Logan came over and lifted Belle up out of Rum's arms, carrying her across the foyer and disappearing off towards the elevator down to the lower levels. Storm held out a hand to help Rum off the floor; his legs were bent awkwardly under him and he grimaced as he got to his feet, staggering slightly. 

"Where are the children?" he asked, accepting Storm's arm around him to help him walk on his battered ankle. It was slow progress towards his room, but at least there were no stairs to negotiate. "Are they all right?"

Storm nodded. "They’re going to be all right; Ruby is upstairs looking after the ones here and Peter's gone after the ones in the tunnels, they'll come back as soon as everything's safe here. There's a bunker in the woods not too far from here; that's where they will have gone. There's sleeping bags and food and water, they can camp out for a night. I'd rather not get them back until we know they're going to be all right."

"Sensible." 

They eventually reached Rum's room and he limped over to the bed, sitting down and stretching out his leg with a sharp hiss of pain. 

"Are you going to be all right?" Storm asked. Rum nodded. 

"In the grander scheme of things, me sitting on my ankle is really the least of your worries," he said. "Just let me know if there's anything I can do."

Storm smiled. "We'll probably need you to take on Marco's role for a while. Jean's determined that he's not going to overdo it, although we might have a fight on our hands. He says he feels old enough as it is, he doesn't need mollycoddling to make him any older."

Rum gave a snort of laughter and Storm made to leave the room and let him rest; it had been a traumatic time for him as much as the rest of them. 

"Just..." he began, and Storm paused in the doorway. "Just make sure Bae's safe... And let me know how Belle's doing."

Storm nodded. "Of course."

She left Rum to his own devices and moved through the now-quiet house towards the medical room and Belle. As she entered, she caught a sharp thought in her head. It was the professor. 

_Storm? What's happening there? I couldn't get a lock on Belle._

_We're secure, just waiting your input,_ Storm replied, as clearly as she could. _Belle's in a bad way though. She saved us all, but she pushed too far. I'm worried about her._

_I'll take a look as soon as I get there. We're about ten minutes out._

He clocked out of the connection and Storm went over to where Logan was standing next to the bed he had placed Belle on. 

"The professor's coming," she told him. There was a sense of relief in the air now, as if the professor's presence would somehow magically make everything all right and they no longer needed to worry. It was not as simple as that, obviously, but there was one less thing to worry about. Storm stroked Belle's messy hair out of her face, taking the opportunity to check her pulse and breathing. 

"She'll be all right," Logan said, although Storm could tell that even he wasn't convinced by his words. "She's a tough cookie, always has been." There was a long pause. "I should... go. Be useful. Check the kids are all right. Something."

Storm just nodded; she knew that he was giving her space and privacy to get Belle out of her suit and into more comfortable scrubs, and she also knew that by 'kids' he really meant 'Rogue and the others'. She could forgive him that, just as she could forgive Rum's thoughts immediately going to Bae before everyone else. Logan left the medical room and Storm began to get to work, cleaning the remaining blood off her friend's face. 

"Thanks, Belle," she whispered. "Just come back to us, ok?"

X

Belle missed the circus that went on after the professor's arrival. For six days she slept on, safe underground, oblivious to everything, her mind closed off to the rest of the world. Once he had arrived, and the soldiers had been dealt with, the Professor had come down to the medical room and determined that although Belle's mind had been pushed to its breaking point, it was not broken, and there was no reason that she would not wake of her own accord once her mind was ready to face an influx of information once more. And so she slept on through the media storm that surrounded the labs being exposed as having experimented illegally on mutants and subsequently closed down. She slept on through Hank and the professor calmly and tirelessly working to make sure that the school remained safe and untouched despite the attention centred on it. She slept on through the students returning to the school, and wasn't there to witness the second reunion between Bae and his father, or the tearful hugs that Rogue and Logan shared on finding out that the other was ok. She slept on through Ruby and Storm taking the jet out to Storybrooke again to bring Ruby’s grandmother back to the school for her own protection, and she missed the ‘time stands still and everything goes wibbly’ moment that occurred when Granny was first introduced to Marco.

In the blissful quiet of her own subconscious, Belle slept on, repairing herself in the only way she could. 

"She'll be ok." Jean said, her voice thick through her mask as she checked Belle's vitals. The cold was pretty much gone but there was no shame in strict hygiene practices to avoid passing anything lingering on to her patients. "Her stats are up every day and her brain function is strong. Just need to wait for her mind to catch up with her body."

Rum nodded, stroking his thumb over the back of her limp hand. It was a bittersweet irony, he thought, that when he had first come to the school, Belle had been the one to sit vigil by his bedside, and now he was returning the favour for her. 

An elfin face peered around the corner; it was Tink, the girl they'd rescued from the labs. Jean smiled - well, her eyes crinkled into what would be a smile above the mask - and she waved the younger woman over. Tink seemed to be getting on well in her new surroundings; Rum had got to know her due to the amount of time she'd spent in the medical room with Jean and Hank treating her torn and mangled wings. She was still nervous, and the trauma she had been through would probably never truly leave her, but here at least she could begin to heal. Rogue had taken her under her strictly metaphorical wing in the wake of the students’ return to the school, and together with Regina they had formed an odd sort of motley trio, not one that anyone could have foreseen, the events of their pasts serving as a way to bind them together. They had not all experienced the same things, but they all had nightmares that did not bear repeating, and it was in those small hours, having awakened with a fright, that they had bonded, and Rum had found them sitting up together in the middle of the night on more than one occasion when Jean, Marco or Storm had made him get to his own bed instead of staying any longer down in the medical room with Belle.

"How's Belle doing?" Tink asked as she sat down on the bed next to them, shrugging off the long cardigan that she had taken to wearing to hide her wings; although they folded down flat against her back, they did not form to her body and seeing her with her wings folded down made her look like she was wearing a shimmering green cape. She rolled her shoulders and spread her wings, letting Jean carefully remove the dressings taped along the edges.

"She'll be ok," Jean and Rum answered in unison, and Tink gave a little smile. 

"I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for her," she said. "I just want the chance to say thanks."

"You'll get it," Jean said. "Belle's strong." She ran a fingertip over the edge of Tink's wings. "So are you; you're healing very well. We'll have you up and flying again in no time." 

“They’re really heavy,” Tink said. “I spent so much time…” She didn’t finish the sentence, but Rum could fill it in; he’d heard enough about what had happened to her at the lab in passing from simply being in the vicinity whilst Jean and Hank looked after her. She’d spent so much time with her wings strapped up that she’d forgotten how heavy they were when they were folded down in their natural position.

Rum turned his attention back to Belle, giving her hand a squeeze. He had no doubt that she was strong: he had seen her in action. What he feared was that she was lost, her mind trying desperately to make it back to her body after having been so stretched and splintered. 

 _Come back, Belle,_ he thought, wondering if she could hear him somewhere in the depths of her coma. _Come back for me, and Tink, and Emma, and everyone else who loves you and wants to thank you for everything you've done._

He startled when Belle's voice, faint and distant but still undeniably Belle's, entered into his head without going through his ears. He had not been expecting a response at all, let alone a mental one.

 _I'm coming,_ she said. 

 _Belle?_ He looked down at her sleeping body beside him, but nothing had changed. 

"Rum?" Jean's voice came in through his ears, pervading his consciousness as he tried desperately to find Belle's mental voice again. "Is everything all right?"

"I don't know... I heard Belle's voice..."

 _Nearly there._ Her voice was stronger now, closer. _Sorry it took me a while._

Belle's eyes flickered open, and she stared at the ceiling for a long time before blinking and refocussing on Rum's face above her, giving a small smile. Rum returned it as Jean rushed over, checking the drips and lines and making sure everything was shipshape as her patient regained consciousness.

"Hey there," Rum murmured. "Welcome back."

_Hey. How long was I out for?_

Her mind was back, but her body had been still for too long for her voice to have returned to her just yet. Rum smiled.

“Nearly a week.”

 _A week!_ Belle’s eyes widened at the news. _Oh my word, is everyone all right? The children?_

“Calm down, Belle,” Jean soothed as the monitors that Belle was hooked up to started to beep frantically with Belle’s increased pulse and breath rate. “Please calm down, you’re going to be all right.”

_I don’t care about me, what happened to everyone else?!_

“Everyone’s fine,” Rum assured her, returning the slight pressure of her hand in his. “Everyone’s going to be all right. The children are all back, they’re all well. Marco’s going to be ok. Tink’s here, she’s well.

Tink had since hopped off the bed that she had been perched off and come over to investigate what was going on with Belle, peering over Rum’s shoulder, and she smiled nervously, giving a little wave. Belle inclined her head towards the younger girl, lips twitching in another little smile.

“You did brilliantly,” Rum continued. “Just rest now and get your strength back.”

 _I’ve had a week’s worth of rest…_ Belle’s mental voice tailed off. _You’re right, I feel like I’ve been run over by a bus._ Rum had to laugh at that, and Jean raised an eyebrow but did not ask precisely what had passed between them mentally.

“I’ll leave you in peace,” Rum said. Although he had barely left her side whilst she had been sleeping, it felt wrong to remain now that she was awake; he had no idea if she would be appreciative of his presence or not.

 _You don’t have to,_ Belle said. _Please… Stay if you can. I like having you with me. I like having you with me. You’re easy to reach out to. Your mind… it’s nice and familiar. Not too taxing._

“I’ll stay as long as you want me here,” Rum said. “But you do need to rest; doesn’t she, Jean?”

Jean nodded, taking Belle’s other hand in both of her gloved ones.

“You’ll be back with us soon enough, Belle. Let’s get you walking and talking first though.”

Belle gave a huff of breath that was probably the nearest thing to a laugh that she could manage in that moment, and satisfied that she was not in any imminent danger of relapse, Jean left her side to finish tending to Tink. Rum returned his attention to Belle, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles where she kept hold of his hand. Her grip was still weak, but it was there, which was more than it had been for the last six days, and it was something that Rum could hold onto, knowing that she was here and had not been lost somewhere in the chasms of unconsciousness like he had feared.

“Everyone’s fine,” he repeated. “They’re all asking after you. Your students miss you.”

 _Haha, I’m sure they don’t miss my homework._ She paused, and she seemed to be searching his face. _How’s Bae?_

“Bae’s grand.” For a moment it struck Rum how odd it must look to an outsider witnessing their conversation, essentially him talking to himself, but he felt that it would be easier for Belle to just listen to his answers rather than have them flung directly into her mind. Best to save her brain the work for a while. “He and Emma are thick as thieves now. They’re almost inseparable. Part of me is glad he’s found such a good friend here. The rest of me is worried what on earth they’re going to cook up squirrelled away together all the time.”

Belle’s peal of laughter in his mind was one of the most beautiful things he had ever heard.

 _Thank you_ , Belle said eventually. _I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been there._

“I think the reverse is probably truer,” Rum pointed out. Belle gave a minute shake of her head.

_No… When you caught me in the foyer… I clung to your mind like it was the only thing keeping me grounded. If it hadn’t been for you, I don’t think I would have made it back. I’d still be lost. Thank you._

Rum chanced to press a kiss against her knuckles, a sign of his gratitude and his affection towards her.

“You’re very welcome.”

 

 


	21. Chapter 21

**Epilogue**

"Ok, it's official. This is home, now."

Bae peeped around the door to Rum's room and grinned on seeing the spinning wheel set up there. It was a week since they had made the journey back to Storybrooke with Belle and Storm to pick up their possessions from the house and bid farewell to the place that had been their home for so long. There were several unhappy memories associated with the place, but there were many good ones too, and it had taken Rum a long time to really come to terms with the fact that the only home he had ever known was now no longer his home. But in the weeks that he had spent at the Institute, getting used to the way of life and the people there, he had begun to feel more and more at home there, and when the long-delayed discussion of his and Bae's future had finally taken place, he had found himself agreeing to the professor's proposal that he stay on with them as a general handyman and helper, to ease the burden on Marco somewhat. The older man was more than happy to have another pair of hands to help him in the day to day pastoral care of the school, as he would be the first to admit that he was nowhere near as young as he used to be.

The transition had been difficult, Rum would not lie, and he was never going to get used to having so many people around all the time. But now his spinning wheel was here, and he had his straw, and this room had become to him the same safe bolthole as his basement had been back home. Living with so many people with wildly varying different needs - some as a direct result of their mutations and some as a result of the traumas they had been through because of their difference - the students were far more accommodating of everyone's individualities than perhaps people outside of the school would have been.

And Bae was right. The spinning wheel was what had made this place his true home. He'd put off setting it up for as long as he could, but seeing it in pieces in a box in the corner of the room was causing him too much heartache, and he'd had to set the old girl up in the end just to assuage his guilt at leaving her in a crate for so long.

Bae came into the room fully and looked around at the place, giving it his seal of approval now that his father had officially moved in. Finally he came over to Rum, and gave him a hug.

"I'm proud of you, Dad," he said, and Rum knew that he meant it. "We're going to be happy here, I know it. It's going to be great."

Rum nodded his agreement. Sure, Bae was going to have to fly the nest at some point, but that point didn't necessarily have to be right now.

"Knock knock, washing delivery."

Rum looked over at the door to see Belle standing there, her arms full of freshly laundered bed sheets. Bae glanced from his dad to Belle and back again, before giving the world's most obvious and impish smirk and slipping out of the room past the older woman, some vague excuse about promising to help Emma with her homework floating over his shoulder.

"If he's trying to be subtle in leaving us alone together, he's really not managing it," Belle observed as she came in and dumped the laundry on Rum's bed. "Hey, you put the spinning wheel back together!"

Rum nodded, giving the wheel a whirl and watching it turn, its motion calming him in the way that it had always done, even in these new surroundings.

Belle came over, planting a soft kiss against his scalp. "You know, you're going to have to spin for me at some point. I've wanted to see you do it for ages."

"Well, just tell me when, and it's a date. But before that, I need to remind you to do something, too. Bae reminded me earlier."

"What's that?" Belle asked, sitting down on the spinning wheel bench beside him.

"Back when I first arrived and I was still down in the medical room, you told me to remind you, when I was slightly more mobile, to show me your favourite place. When I was still overwhelmed by everything and looking for a hiding place in every box."

"Oh yes!" Belle exclaimed, grinning broadly. "I never did show you the roof. I suppose it was the middle of winter and heavy snow isn't really the best time for sitting out on the roof. But we can go out now, if you want."

Rum nodded. "I'd like that."

Together they made their way out of the room and through the school's corridors to the elevator, taking them up to the top floor where Belle and Ruby had their rooms.

"It's along here," Belle said, taking the lead and going down to the very end of the corridor, taking a small yale key out of her pocket and jumping back with a squawk of alarm when a small, shimmering portal opened up beside the door and Bae's hand came through it, holding a flask.

"Marco says if you're going up onto the roof, you need tea," Bae's voice said from the kitchen. "It's not warm enough for sitting on the roof yet."

Belle sighed and took the flask from Bae.

"Thank you, Bae. Thanks, Marco."

Bae's hand waved and vanished back through the portal, and Belle rolled her eyes.

"Sometimes I wonder if there's any privacy in this place, then I remember that I'm a telepath and it's a case of pot and kettle. You'll get used to it," she added to Rum.

Rum chuckled. "I know I will. I also know my son and his determination to play matchmaker."

"I suppose we should be glad that he's leaving us alone. I have known some students in the past who would be checking up on us every five minutes on the pretence of looking for something so that they could see what was going on and report back." She paused, and leaned in to kiss Rum's lips. Assured that there was no-one else about in this topmost part of the house, Rum slipped his free hand into her hair to deepen the kiss, and Belle was more than eager to oblige him, her arms coming around his neck and the door to the attics and ultimately the roof momentarily forgotten. When she finally released him, she giggled.

"I think that would certainly give them food for thought," Rum said softly. "So... The roof? Before any well-meaning yet incredibly nosy students can wonder what's going on up here?"

Belle nodded her agreement and unlocked the door, leading them into the dusty attics that were used only for storage. The path through the junk was well worn, and as Rum picked his way through in the dim light from the single bulb overhead, he wondered how many times Belle had made this journey alone, and if she had ever brought anyone else up here. It was nice to know that despite everyone living in such comparatively close proximity to each other, they were still able to find their own little niches here and there.

"This way." Belle was waiting at the foot of a small set of wooden steps that led up to a door in the sloping roof. "It's flat outside, you won't have any trouble."

Rum flexed his fingers over the warm gold of his cane handle. It was not the same cane that he had used prior to coming to the school, he was still getting used to the shape and weight of it, but it was as similar a match as could be found at relatively short notice, and it was infinitely preferable to any other kind of walking aid that he could have used. It felt good to have the touch of gold constantly again, like a safety blanket had been restored. Not that he anticipated actually having to use it in quite the same violent manner that had lost him his first one any time soon, but still, he was more at ease now.

Belle unlocked the door and they were met with a rush of cool air from outside, and she held out her hand to him.

Illuminated in the pink light of the sunset as she was, she looked like some kind of angel sent from heaven to rescue him from the darkness and isolation of his previous life, and her smile was as radiant as the sun. Rum felt no qualms in taking the offered hand, squeezing her fingers tight, and following her out into the evening.

The flat area of the roof was railed in; no doubt in case any of the kids managed to get up here by fluke or design, and Belle leaned on the railings, looking out over the grounds.

"I love it up here," she said with a satisfied sigh. "It's always so peaceful, and for a clear day you can see for miles. It's just us and the birds up here." The sun had almost gone, and Belle shivered. "Wait here, I'll be back in a minute."

She ducked back into the attic and returned a moment later enveloped in a huge afghan, shaking out some thick blankets and wrapping one around Rum's shoulders before spreading the rest over the cold roof tiles and settling herself on them, watching the last of the sun's rays vanish behind the trees. Rum sat down beside her, and Belle leaned into his side.

"I'm glad you stayed," she whispered. "I'd have missed you too much if you'd gone."

"And I you," Rum replied honestly. "In fact, I think you're the reason I decided to stay. Well, Bae obviously. But you as well. The thought of not seeing you again was not a pleasant one."

And to think, Rum mused. If Belle had not found them in the first place, all those months ago, then they would not be here together now. He shivered, unwilling to think on what might have happened had their paths not crossed. Belle caught his shudder and looked up at him, concerned.

"Are you all right?" she asked. "Do you want to go in?"

"No, not yet. I like the quiet up here."

Belle smiled. "Me too."

They continued sitting together for a while, drinking tea from the flask and just enjoying the beauty of a world that so rarely gave them time to stop and enjoy it, until the night had truly fallen all around them and the stars were twinkling above. Belle shivered in his arms.

"Do you want to go inside?" Rum suggested.

Belle nodded.  "Yes... Marco was right, it is still a bit chilly out here." She paused, and in the moonlight he could see the light blush colouring her cheeks as she looked up at him through her lashes. "Do you, erm, want to come back to my room?"

She was worrying her bottom lip between her teeth, and it was the most adorable thing that Rum had ever seen. As nervous as he was at the suggestion behind the invitation, he nodded. It was a new start here, after all, a new home, and a time for taking chances. And there was no-one with whom he would rather take a chance than Belle.

"I'd like that," he said.

X

Belle was an early bird, and it was unusual for her to sleep in for any length of time, especially if she was teaching, so when she did not appear at the breakfast table, Ruby was more than a little concerned. Once she had wolfed down her own meal, she grabbed a couple of slices of toast and went in search of her friend. Perhaps she wasn't feeling well and had decided that a duvet day was the best way to recover. It would not be the first time, but usually she sent a message, either via a student or via a thought, to let Ruby know that her lessons would need covering.

As she approached Belle's room, however, Ruby immediately noticed that something was different.

Something smelled different.

In addition to Belle's scent, there was the distinct undertone of something earthy and musky and sweaty, and the very sharp smell of soft metal: gold, to be precise.

Yes, Belle's room smelled of Belle, of sex, and of Rum Gold. Out of the corner of her eye, Ruby caught sight of movement at the other end of the corridor and she looked up to see Logan smirking at her. She rolled her eyes, so he'd already noticed and was waiting for her to come to the same conclusion. She pressed her ear up against the door and nodded. Two steady heartbeats, two sets of calm, sleepy breathing.  She smiled and walked away, leaving the two lovebirds in peace.

_Professor Xavier!_

A sharp, directed thought of his name was guaranteed to get his attention, and sure enough, he replied less than ten seconds later.

_What's the problem, Ruby?_

_Oh, no problem at all, Prof. I'm just letting you know that I'm going to take Belle's classes this morning._

There was mental silence for a moment, and when the professor's voice spoke again in her mind, Ruby could tell that wherever he was in the school, he was wearing that wry smile that she had not seen often, but often enough.

_Well, there's only one thing to say to that, Ruby._

_What's that, Prof?_

_It's about time._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that is the end of the line! 
> 
> I will be posting, separately:
> 
> 1 - A few of the Rogue/Logan scenes that were cut for time. I had intended them to have an entire subplot all to themselves, and I'm working on their deleted scenes. 
> 
> 2 - What happened in the 'fade-to-black' during this chapter. The E-rated Epilogue will be up separately!
> 
> I have been wanting to write this fanfic for about three years now, and I'm so happy to have done it! Thank you to everyone who's been reading it, and I hope you've all enjoyed it!


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